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There is a shortage of talking therapy available to people with mental health problems. But Lord Darzi, a former Labour health minister and the current executive chair of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) suggests mobile technology could be used to help fill the gap. | By Lord DarziInstitute of Global Health, Imperial College London
In the UK, one in four people will experience a mental health problem at some point in their lives.
Mental illness can be unforgiving and can often leave people feeling hopeless. While treatments do vary depending on the individual or type of illness, they will often include a mixture of therapy, self-help, or medication.
People also turn to exercise, meditation and creative art therapies, to help in their recovery process. Often it is a combination of these things that works best.
But are there more innovative alternatives we can offer?
'An issue that won't go away'
Increasingly we rely on smart phones in our daily lives, from checking emails and reminders or monitoring social media to purchasing goods and services.
But I believe mental health services are behind the curve and should be better utilising the communication technology patients already have at their fingertips.
Even with the successful introduction of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service, there is a shortage of trained professionals who provide the kind of care patients need.
That's an issue which will not go away. It needs to be addressed with innovative thinking.
Mobile technologies are still largely untapped sources of innovation for the NHS.
The portability, privacy, and round-the-clock availability of mobile phones offer mental health workers and patients a direct, private, and instantaneous method of communication as well as access to information and self-care support.
'Buyers beware'
There are thousands of mental health apps available directly to consumers, bypassing support from trained NHS clinicians.
Could this be because these apps are discovered privately, through a medium they trust, are instantly accessible, are in patients' hands at almost any time of day?
But buyers beware: most direct-to-consumer apps have no evidence from clinical trials.
Even those with a promising but small evidence base lack the necessary funding to run the type of large clinical trials that would allow them to be evaluated for inclusion in NHS treatment recommendations.
I believe mobile technology can be used as an extension of existing one to one or group therapy, so that when a patient leaves their weekly session they still feel connected to the health service, even if not physically.
This kind of engagement could achieve a great deal in getting more patients into treatment, and helping more patients with ongoing support and recovery.
If implemented effectively then patients could benefit from a quicker recovery process and shorter waiting lists while the health service will accrue benefits from a shift of burden towards increased patient self-care.
Potential
For example, there is an app called 'Viary' created by Swedish startup Hoa's Toolshop, which prompts users to engage in behaviours known to relieve depression, such as writing in a journal, and tracks patients' progress over time and location.
The app accumulates data and then visually presents triggers; progress; setbacks; and patterns over time and across locations that the patient and therapist can view together and look at ways to address problems.
A nine-week trial of the app was conducted in Sweden in 2013. Eighty-eight participants with depression received either four face-to-face sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy plus the use of Viary or 10 face-to-face sessions of CBT alone.
The study found no between-group differences on levels of depression, which indicates that four sessions of CBT plus Viary were as effective as 10 sessions of CBT.
While this was only a small study, this - and other similar work that has been done - demonstrates the potential for mobile technologies to support the treatment of a wide range of mental health issues.
Health leaders need to consider greater collaboration with innovators in technology and academic and private-sector cooperatives should be encouraged to foster innovation in this area.
Mental health care professionals deliver fantastic care every day but with such demand it is not an easy task. Bold and innovative thinking is needed to ensure that people living with mental health get the best service possible.
The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) is an initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The Summit takes place on 17/18 February 2015.
Prof Lord Darzi of Denham, is executive chair of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) and director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London.
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Jamie T has postponed six UK tour dates due to an extended bout of Laryngitis. | By Greg CochraneNewsbeat music reporter
The singer's Kings & Queens tour was due to begin in Bristol tonight (1 October) but will now commence on 9 October at Glasgow Barrowlands.
Dates in Southampton, Birmingham, Newcastle, Nottingham and Norwich have also been affected.
He is reportedly not recovered since falling ill on a recent tour of Australia.
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Delivering election leaflets will be allowed in Wales from Monday. | But Wales' first minister said door knocking by activists will not be permitted yet.
Mark Drakeford's latest decision followed criticism from some election candidates on a ban on the delivery of leaflets during lockdown.
He said that full preparations for the elections are underway for 6 May, with the criteria for postponing the election not met.
The Senedd has passed but has not used legislation that would allow for a delay to the Senedd election.
Ministers from the UK, Scottish and Welsh government have asked voters to take their own pens and pencils to the polls, if they choose to vote in person.
Postal and proxy voting is also available. Wales will begin easing many of its restrictions this weekend.
Mr Drakeford said the Welsh government would be publishing guidance for campaigning for the Senedd and Police and Crime Commissioner elections due to take place in May.
"It's got to be done sensibly and properly," he told a press conference.
He said allowing door-to-door canvassing would not be advisable "from a public health perspective" and people would not understand it.
"You cannot meet members of your own family but you can meet a political canvasser, I don't see that being easy to explain," he said.
Door-to-door campaigning for England's local elections has been allowed since 8 March and activists can canvas and leaflet there as long as they work alone.
Groups of six canvassers are due to be allowed in England from 29 March.
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Police have named a man they suspect of attempted murder in connection with a stabbing in February. | Detectives are seeking 18-year-old Abdirabi Mohamud who is known to frequent various areas of Birmingham and has links to Liverpool and Manchester.
The attack happened on Coventry Road in Small Heath, Birmingham, on 18 February.
The victim was a 22-year-old man who was stabbed in the back.
Police advise people not to approach the suspect but inform officers of his whereabouts.
Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.
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What kind of candidate, a few months ahead of elections, takes it on himself to offend a list of people that includes judges and lawyers, immigrants and Muslims, footballers and intellectuals, political allies as well as enemies, the intelligence community and his ex-girlfriend too? | By Hugh SchofieldBBC News, Paris
The answer is Francois Hollande.
In a collection of interviews just published by two Le Monde journalists, the French president unburdens himself, in astonishingly cavalier style, of a series of revealing jibes:
There's more. Presidential predecessor and Republican candidate Nicolas Sarkozy is a "crude mini-De Gaulle" and a "Duracell rabbit". The Greens are a "cynical pain in the butt" and left-wing rebels are a "crowd of idiots".
And, on a personal note, ex-partner Valerie Trierweiler was a traitor because she lied about his famous "toothless" quote about the poor.
Perhaps most damaging of all, not a jibe but a revelation: the admission that he personally ordered the assassination of four enemies of the state, presumably militants in the Middle East. The secret services must be fuming.
Friends in the Socialist Party, still hoping Mr Hollande might have a decent shot at a second term in April, are flabbergasted at the president's verbal carelessness. They fear it has already undermined his nascent campaign.
Others are more blunt. For more than one commentator, the book - called appropriately A President Should Not Say That - is little less than an act of "political suicide".
"How do you manage to turn your camp into a field of ruins, fill your friends with despair and your enemies with rejoicing, and weaken your own position just a little bit more?" asked Le Monde.
"Francois Hollande has found the recipe."
What was he thinking?
The interviews, 60 in all, were accumulated over the last five years by Gerard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme.
The president received them regularly at the Elysee Palace and they chatted. The journalists made no secret of their intention of writing a book, and Mr Hollande agreed to their condition of no copy-vetting.
In his defence, it has been argued that the controversial comments were made a long time ago - and it is easy to take things out of context.
All he was trying to do, plead the president's dwindling band of loyalists, was keep his promise of being a "normal" president by opening his doors, as well as his thoughts, to the press.
But, off the record, many Socialists are exasperated by what they see as a kind of narcissistic self-indulgence on the part of their leader.
What psychological impulse can it be, they ask, that made him spend so much time baring himself to journalists? How could he have been so naive?
More from Hugh:
With the book selling out in shops across Paris, the damage is already visible.
In a poll, 78% of those surveyed said it was a mistake for Mr Hollande to give the interviews. An even greater figure, 86%, said they did not want him to run for a second term.
Until now Mr Hollande has kept his career options open.
A Socialist primary will be held in January, and the president will announce if he is a candidate only after the centre-right holds its primary next month.
The consensus until this week was that the president would indeed run again, despite record unpopularity and the failure of his solemn vow to bring down unemployment.
The argument, as ever with Mr Hollande, is that only a bridge-builder like himself can bring together the two competing wings of the Socialists. The existence of rival candidates - Arnaud Montebourg on the left, Emmanuel Macron on the right - tends to reinforce that case.
But now more and more people in the party are pondering whether the president might not be an outright liability.
"It's bewildering. I lack the words to say what I think: something between a hammer-blow to the head, and the straw that broke the camel's back," one Socialist MP told Le Monde after reading extracts from the book.
"Imagine burying your grandmother when she is still alive; that's roughly the ambience at party HQ," said another.
Hitting back at Hollande
The president's unguarded quips have already led to a series of angry rejoinders from his targets.
Magistrates said they were "stupefied" by his criticism, and the Union of Professional Football Players said: "Sorry to disappoint you, but not all of us are thick."
Mr Hollande's ex-partner Valerie Trierweiler sent out a tweet to contradict his denial that he had mockingly called the poor "toothless". In the book Mr Hollande says that her original accusation to that effect, made after the pair had split, was an "odious act of treachery".
For many commentators, the interviews are symptomatic of his original mistake when he defined himself as a "normal" president in contrast with the frantic "hyper-president" Nicolas Sarkozy.
As political scientist Gerard Grunberg pointed out, in such abnormal times, France was not looking for a normal president.
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In the three-and-a-half minute video, one of the hostages, reading from a piece of paper, states that his captors are Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad. This is the official name for the Nigerian Islamist militant group popularly known as Boko Haram, which has waged an insurgency for more than a decade. | By Will RossBBC News, Lagos
It is impossible to independently verify that this is the group holding the seven French tourists. It is also not clear if the masked militants in the video are speaking on behalf of the entire group or its leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau, or whether they are a faction.
If the video is genuinely from Boko Haram then it shows us how this organisation is metamorphosing from being a local group with a mainly Nigerian agenda into a more international jihadist outfit.
Securing a ransom payment could be an objective of the kidnappings but it seems just as likely that the overall aim of the Islamist militants is more political - to use hostages as a bargaining chip to pressure the West to end its military involvement in countries like Mali and Somalia.
Up to now, Boko Haram had never said it had taken hostages.
Its grievances have mainly been within Nigeria - especially with what it sees as the corrupt political elite and Islamic establishment.
The car bombing of the UN building in the capital, Abuja. in August 2011 was the only clear evidence of an attack on an international target.
France is clearly the focus of this latest video which was posted on YouTube.
A militant criticises the French President Francois Hollande for sending troops to fight Islamist militants in northern Mali.
"Let the French president know that he has launched war against Islam and we are fighting him everywhere. Let him know that we are spread everywhere to save our brothers," the man reads as the French hostages, including four children, sit behind him.
'Factionalised'
He speaks in Arabic whereas previous Boko Haram videos have been in the local Hausa language - an indication of a shift in the group's agenda.
Although in the recording there were calls for colleagues to be released from detention in Nigeria and Cameroon, Nigeria's President Jonathan Goodluck was not criticised for sending troops to Mali.
It seems Boko Haram - or a faction of the group - is expanding its focus beyond Nigeria's borders.
"People have had the impression that this organisation was Nigeria based," says Abubakar Kari, a political scientist at the University of Abuja.
" If it now makes demands which are not Nigeria related then finally it has become an international organisation."
The situation in Mali seems to have played a key role in the change of direction. There have been unconfirmed reports in recent months of Boko Haram members linking up in Mali with Islamist militants from the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao) - a group which has used multi-million dollar ransom payments to help fund its operations in Mali.
Malian officials say prior to the French military action, hundreds of Boko Haram recruits were training at a camp outside the city of Gao in northern Mali.
"There is evidence that the group has been factionalised - there is the classic al-Qaeda type of group with an international jihadist agenda whilst the other faction is responding more to local issues," says Jibrin Ibrahim, director of the Nigeria-based Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD).
It is widely suspected that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has not been well for months - possibly after being injured. Analysts believe this could be contributing to splits within the Islamist militants.
'Grand fiction'
The day before the YouTube video was released a man who said he was speaking on behalf of the Boko Haram leadership denied the group had been responsible for the kidnapping of the French family.
"We have nothing to do with the French people or their abductors," said Sheikh Abu Muhammad Ibn Abdulazeez.
However, some people question his credibility. The fact that he made this statement during a 30-minute press conference at a television station in Maiduguri in north-east Nigeria makes some people doubt whether he has anything to do with Boko Haram.
The Nigerian military may at times have been criticised for its response to the insurgency, but you have to wonder how the army which has a very heavy presence in Maiduguri would not have noticed a Boko Haram press conference taking place.
"I know enough about the leadership of the sect and its protocols to know that the so-called Abdulazeez is a grand fiction created by those who want to feather their personal nests," journalist and Boko Haram-watcher Ahmad Salkida wrote earlier this month in Nigeria's Premium Times.
Last month, the man, who gave his name as Sheikh Abu Muhammad Ibn Abdulazeez, announced that Boko Haram had declared a ceasefire.
The attacks did not stop leading one newspaper to print the headline: "Ceasefire or ceaseless fire?"
There are also many Nigerians who believe some politicians are fuelling the insurgency for their own personal gain.
The group popularly known as Boko Haram used to own up to attacks via email. It has even posted videos of its bombings, including the April 2012 car bombing of This Day newspaper in Abuja.
But after its spokesman, known as Abu Qaqa, was reportedly killed by Nigerian troops during a gun battle in Kano last September, the emails have dried up.
Even when those emails were sent to local newsrooms, it was never possible to verify that they were the views of the group's leadership.
Boko Haram vehemently denied having anything to do with the first kidnappings in northern Nigeria in May 2011 when Christopher McManus, a British national identified as a quantity surveyor, and his Italian colleague Franco Lamolinara, were seized by the Islamist group called, "al-Qaeda in the land beyond the Sahel".
The two hostages were killed, apparently by their captors, as British and Nigerian troops attempted a rescue mission in March 2012.
The UK later said the hostage-takers were from a group known as Ansaru.
Also known as Jama'atu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan (Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa), Ansaru emailed newsrooms to say it was behind the kidnapping earlier this month of seven foreigners in northern Nigeria.
Opinion differs on possible links between all these groups.
Some analysts believe they simply share a similar Islamist ideology whilst others believe they are products of Boko Haram splits.
With so much violence in northern Nigeria it is increasingly difficult to know who is behind it all.
"There is a theory that Boko Haram became a franchise adopted by all sorts of organisations and groups in order to mask their true identity," says Mr Kari, adding that the kidnapping of the French family may not have been done by Boko Haram but by another organisation with a separate objective.
But it is clear that kidnapping is now a major strategy of the Islamist militants in northern Nigeria.
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Javier Bauluz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Spanish photojournalist who has been reporting on the recent wave of protests in Nicaragua in which hundreds of people have been killed. He argues that there are parallels between the current crisis and Nicaragua's armed conflict of the 1980s, which he also covered. | "How did we not realise that they were becoming monsters? How did we let them get away with so much?" an old woman asked me, crying, at an anti-government demonstration in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, at the end of April.
The upset woman was a former member of the Sandinista rebel group, which successfully rose up against President Anastasio Somoza in 1979, thereby putting an end to more than 40 years of bloody rule by his family.
Now, four decades on from the overthrow of Somoza, she was taking to the streets against the government of Daniel Ortega, himself a former rebel and Sandinista leader.
After winning four presidential elections, Mr Ortega has been in power for more than 16 of the 39 years since Somoza was ousted.
When the crying old woman said she regretted "letting them get away with", she was talking about the repression she saw coming from Mr Ortega's administration after the anti-government protests began on 18 April.
When I landed in Managua on the fifth day of protests, the number of people killed stood at 27, according to figures from the Nicaraguan Association for Human Rights (ANPDH). According to that same organisation, that number had gone up to 448 by 26 July.
New weapons
A veteran of the fight against Somoza, Mr Ortega has failed to realise that there are new arms available to those fighting today's battles.
The internet and social media have become both tools and weapons for those demonstrating against President Ortega.
They are using them to organise protests and to document human rights violations carried out by his government.
I think that Mr Ortega's thinking is stuck in the 1980s. He does not realise that having control of a large part of the traditional media, mostly owned by his sons, is no longer enough to control the flow of information.
But there are things that remind me of what I experienced in Nicaragua of the 1980s: the strength, courage and determination, which I have seen among the young and those not so young (among those taking to the streets are also mothers, fathers and grandparents).
These days, medical students are detained for treating peaceful protesters who do not have anywhere else to turn after being banned from seeking help in hospitals.
These doctors and aspiring doctors have to act clandestinely.
That reminds me of 1986 and 1987 when medical and other students in Managua would volunteer to harvest coffee in the north of the country.
At that time, Daniel Ortega was in his first term in office and was fighting against the anti-Sandinista rebels, who emerged after Somoza was ousted.
Coffee was practically Nicaragua's only source of income during the war against the Contra rebels.
The Contras, on the other hand, enjoyed the backing of the US government to the tune of $100m, after President Ronald Reagan had labelled the Sandinista government a "Communist regime" and a "terrorist" state.
Coffee and rifles
The young peaceful protesters of today remind me of those students whom I met in the coffee plantations, carrying AK-47 rifles in one hand and baskets full of coffee beans in the other.
The rifles were essential as the area came under constant attack by the Contras.
One medical student, who went by the name of Nadia, always got up early in the mornings to lead the group to where they would harvest that day.
With her rifle slung across her shoulder she would go first, knowingly running the risk of treading on one of the many mines that littered the countryside.
That courage and determination which I witnessed in the 1980s and that clever Nicaraguan sense of humour and joy of life which I admire so much, I have come across again at today's barricades - even when the bullets were flying over our heads.
They have conquered fear, just like those students did in the 80s.
'One way or another'
The phrase that I have heard over and over again here in Nicaragua is: "They're going, one way or another".
It refers to President Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, who is also the country's vice-president, and the protesters' aim to kick them out of office, if not the country.
What remains to be seen is how long the couple will take to leave and how much more blood has to be shed before they do.
President Ortega blames everything on the protesters and denies any responsibility. He has even gone as far as flatly denying the existence of pro-government paramilitary groups, when there are hundreds of videos and eyewitness reports which attest to their actions.
He is committing the same mistake he did when he lost the 1990 presidential election by underestimating the strength of feeling among ordinary Nicaraguans.
During that campaign, which I covered, everything had at first pointed to an Ortega win, as crowds would gather to cheer him and his vice-presidential candidate, Sergio Ramírez (who has since turned into a staunch opponent of Mr Ortega).
But Mr Ortega's decision to keep military service obligatory resulted in thousands of mothers, who did not want to see their sons risk their lives, voting against the Sandinista leader.
From Sandinistas to anti-Orteguistas
Today, you can find all kind of people at the protests, rich, poor, leftists, rightists, old, young, students and workers.
Many of those manning the barricades are Sandinistas who believe that Daniel Ortega has betrayed the revolution and its ideals.
It is not unusual to meet people who fought Somoza and the Contras at the anti-government marches. Many are there with their children and grandchildren.
They draw a clear distinction between those who support the present government - whom they call Orteguistas after the president - and themselves, arguing that they are the ones who are upholding the ideals of the Sandinista revolution and the 20th-Century general, Augusto Sandino, from whom they drew inspiration and their name.
Like the Sandinistas who fought Somoza in the the 70s and the Contras in the 80s, those fighting for their basic human rights today are paying a high price for their determination and perseverance.
But they are not deterred and have even adopted the battle cry of Sandinista rebel Leonel Rugama, who when he was surrounded by Somoza's troops shouted: "Let your mother surrender!"
While looking for the home of one of those killed in the recent protests to report on his funeral, I found myself remembering Nadia, the young student who walked among the coffee plants, ready to fight with her rifle, or step on to a landmine, all to defend her ideals of justice and liberty.
"Which side of the barricade would she be on now?" I asked myself.
All photos by Javier Bauluz subject to copyright.
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Our society is becoming significantly less violent. Today's figures suggesting a 12% year-on-year drop in admissions to English hospitals for violent injuries are just the latest evidence of a remarkable and welcome trend. Something extraordinary is happening. | Mark EastonHome editor@BBCMarkEastonon Twitter
The chances of being a victim of violent crime in Britain are half what they were less than 20 years ago. Murders are at their lowest level since the early 1980s.
It's not just in Britain. Violence appears to be falling in many developed countries, with no obvious common political or ideological driver.
The homicide rate has halved since the early 90s in Sweden, Germany, Italy, Hungary, France, Netherlands, South Africa, Canada and the US, the list goes on, despite markedly different approaches to criminal justice and social policies.
So what is happening? One popular current theory is that the switch to lead-free petrol has reduced ingestion of a substance, which in substantial doses over a long period has known links to aggression. There is a striking correlation between a fall in violence and the introduction of unleaded fuel in different countries.
However, the continued substantial fall in serious violence in the UK suggests to me that there are other social and cultural factors at play.
Hospital admissions statistics for violent injury have a strong whiff of alcohol about them - victims are still most likely to arrive late on a Friday or Saturday night, they are predominantly young men and women who have been drinking.
But our relationship with alcohol is changing. When Tony Blair suggested tackling violent and anti-social drinking by encouraging a Southern European cafe culture with more relaxed licensing rules, people scoffed and predicted mayhem.
But, actually, young people are drinking less and behaving better. In many places, the police, local authorities and the licensed trade work successfully together to manage the night-time economy - it may still be a far from edifying scene, but incidents of violence are much fewer and far between than they were.
Some people suggest that the rising price of alcohol is reducing consumption. Public health workers, campaigners and teachers will also claim credit for promoting a culture of responsible drinking.
The important word in that last sentence, I think, is culture. We are witnessing a cultural shift away from violence and aggression that is building upon itself.
It is cool to be cool.
A Home Office research study in 2003 concluded that, for many young Britons, fighting while drunk was seen as an inevitable fact of life. The report quotes a young woman saying: "I have a drink and I just want to fight anyone." A young man agrees: "It is part of our heritage. Like football matches, you always get a fight at the end."
Whether it's licensing laws or lead-free petrol that has been the catalyst, something appears to have changed such attitudes. Our society has become noticeably more intolerant of violence. Whether it is bar-room brawls, football hooliganism, domestic violence or hate crimes, the idea that such behaviour is "inevitable" or "none of our business" is now routinely challenged.
We may have reached a critical tipping point where aggression and violence are no longer acceptable as an inescapable feature of contemporary life. Corporal punishment is out. Anger-management is in.
It is tempting to see this change as part of a much longer phenomenon - the civilizing of our society over centuries. In the 14th century, Britain had murder rates akin to the Congo today. Violence was ubiquitous. Three hundred years later, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes' observation that life in nature was "nasty, brutish and short" still had justification.
Today, for those fortunate enough to live in the developed world, the chances of having one's life cut short through violence are probably lower than at almost any point in history. Intolerance of aggression and tolerance of difference have become social norms that make for a more peaceful and calm society.
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Prosecutions for breaking Community Protection Notices - sometimes known as the new Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos) - are on the rise in England and Wales. But there are concerns the powers are being used unfairly, with no need to prove the accusations being made. | By Rick KelseyReporter, Victoria Derbyshire programme
"I'm desperately sad that this has happened," Sheila Jacklin tells the BBC Victoria Derbyshire programme.
"I put on a brave face, because you have to. But I am deeply sad."
Sheila has lived with her husband Nigel in their home on the East Sussex coast for 26 years.
It was the idea of being moments from the beach that first attracted them to the area, Sheila says.
But taking their normal path to the seafront means they now risk breaking the law.
This is because the couple have been accused of "harassing" their neighbours, originating from a planning dispute, and been issued with a warning letter for a Community Protection Notice (CPN).
It means they are subject to a number of rules which, if broken, could see them given a full CPN - which it is a criminal offence to breach.
The couple are not allowed to walk in a large area in front of their house, be perceived to be looking at any windows in their village or walk on the beach in front of their house.
They deny the claims of harassment, and say the council has placed the restrictions on them without hearing their side.
CPNs are designed to prevent unreasonable behaviour that affects the local community's quality of life, and are the closest of new powers to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (Asbos), which were replaced in 2015 in England and Wales.
But, unlike Asbos, the CPN warning letters can be issued by police and councils without proof of the claims being made, and without going through the courts.
Sheila describes the CPN warning as "ridiculous".
"[The exclusion zone] looks as if someone's got a red crayon and gone round [an arbitrary area]. There's no logic to it."
Rother District Council said: "In this case, Sussex Police issued a warning letter on behalf of the council in an attempt to resolve a long-standing neighbourhood dispute."
The Jacklins say they continue to walk in the area in front of their home, breaking their warning, and are expecting to be given a full CPN - which they say they will challenge in court.
"We are just doing what we have been doing for 26 years, so we'll continue to [go there]," says Nigel, resolutely.
Breaking a CPN can lead to a fine, and and multiple breaches can result in prison.
In the year ending September 2017, there were more than 1,220 prosecutions for breaching CPNs, a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Justice has found.
This was a 42% rise on the previous 12 months, the Victoria Derbyshire programme has found, when there were 855 prosecutions - of which 75% were successful.
The full number of CPN warning letters issued each year is not known.
Shouting, crying, arguing
Josie Appleton from the Manifesto Club, which campaigns for civil liberties, has concerns over how CPNs are issued - and says they are "very hard to appeal".
"A CPN can literally be written on a form, and after that it's a crime for you to do what they say you do.
"I really think that councils are not in the position to be issuing these legal sanctions against people.
"It's a completely arbitrary power. And where you have arbitrary powers you have bad law enforcement."
The Victoria Derbyshire programme has seen evidence of people receiving CPNs for shouting, crying, arguing and feeding birds in the garden.
One case involved a woman in north-east England who says she was issued with a CPN after making noise while being subject to domestic violence.
Joanne, who is challenging her CPN conviction, said the notice - plus a fine - was pushed through her door.
She believes it originates from complaints from one neighbour.
"I'm not paying the fine," she says.
"I've got no previous convictions, I'm a hard-working law-abiding citizen. I don't know how it's happening."
Simon Blackburn from the Local Government Association, however, argues that CPNs are a valuable tool for reducing anti-social behaviour.
"Local authorities aren't going around looking for problems," he says, "they're responding to issues - very serious issues, often - that are reported to them.
"And we have a duty to protect the public, and we take that duty very seriously."
He says people have the right to appeal to a magistrates' court within 21 days, and often a warning letter is "all that's required" to ensure a change in the recipient's behaviour.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "We are clear that Community Protection Orders should be used proportionately to tackle anti-social behaviour."
But for Sheila, it is a power that is needlessly turning aspects of their daily life into an offence.
"It's the criminalisation of us, frankly," she says.
Watch the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme on weekdays between 09:00 and 11:00 on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.
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The government says it is having to put up bus fares across the Isle of Man because of an increase in fuel costs.
| Fares for both adults and children will go up by about 7% from 27 March.
Director of Public Transport, Ian Longworth said the increases were due to both "operational costs and budgetary restraints".
He said an average of 10 pence will be added on to the cost of each journey within Douglas but longer journeys will see an increase of 20 pence.
Mr Longworth added: "We are suffering increases in diesel costs like everyone else so we need to make sure we recover those costs to meet our budget."
Prices for Manx Rider tickets will also be going up between one and two pounds.
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An oak tree planted in Glasgow nearly 100 years ago as a tribute to the city's suffragettes has been named Scotland's Tree of the Year. | The Suffragette Oak in Kelvingrove Park won a public vote from six trees shortlisted in the Woodland Trust Scotland competition.
It was nominated and championed by Glasgow Women's Library.
The oak will now compete with entries from 15 other countries to decide the 2016 European Tree of the Year.
Wendy Kirk, from Glasgow Women's Library, said she was "thrilled" the Suffragette Oak was chosen as the winner.
She said: "I'm sure that the suffragettes would have been delighted to know that nearly 100 years on the tiny sapling they planted has become the Scottish tree of the year."
Carol Evans, director of the Woodland Trust Scotland, said: "One of the reasons for holding the competition is to uncover the hidden history that many trees represent and to encourage people to value and care for them."
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Pakistanis have long been among the world's biggest victims of terrorism, with only Iraq and Afghanistan suffering more fatalities as a result of terror attacks in recent years. For more than a decade the tribal belt in northern Pakistan has been the backdrop for the battle with the Taliban. | By Mobeen AzharBBC News, Karachi
More recently the militants have moved into Pakistan's cities, with Karachi becoming a focal point.
I spent three weeks on the frontline embedded with Karachi police with a squad that has become known as the Taliban hunters.
At 01:15 my phone rings. It's Senior Superintendent Ijaz calling to let me know his team will be conducting an anti-Taliban raid later that night. "I have bullet-proofs for you," he tells me. I've been watching Ijaz work for the past two weeks. He's in his 30s but the bags under his eyes suggest he's packed a lot into those years.
By 02:15 I'm picked up from my hotel by a cavalcade of police vehicles and taken to officer Ijaz's central Karachi compound. I arrive in time to hear the pre-raid briefing.
"I'm in the mood to take the suspects alive. Only fire your guns with express orders from me or the other senior officers," Ijaz instructs his squad of 24 Taliban hunters.
Tonight marks the culmination of four weeks of surveillance. The target is a cell of suspected Taliban members. The police have been tracking their phones. They have intelligence suggesting the group is planning a kidnap.
Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, an international port with a population of 24 million people has now been in the Taliban's grip for more than two years. The city has become a cash cow for militants who have "top sliced" Karachi's gangs.
They make money from kidnap and extortion, with target killing and bombing their choice tools of terror. The latest available figures show 132 cases of kidnap were reported in Karachi in 2014, with the Taliban and affiliated groups being the primary suspects in almost all of these cases.
A cavalcade of five police vehicles sets off from the armoured compound. We travel north to the edge of the city. Ittehad town, a spiralling collection of pop-up slums, gullies and unregistered building has long been a no-go area for many Karachiites.
Shootout
The police don't come to this area without back-up. We've come as far as we possibly can in police vehicles. The suspects' hideout is on a street so narrow we have to move forward on foot.
The light from central Karachi is miles behind us. The only sounds are our footsteps, whispering and dogs barking in the distance. With the hideout identified and surrounded, Ijaz gives the signal. Before his team can knock down the door, gunshots are fired from inside the building. "You are surrounded. Get down or we will shoot back."
A shootout plays out in front of my eyes and, after some tense moments, the two suspects are disarmed. Their weapons are seized and they are arrested.
Officer Ijaz explains: "Getting into the area is easy. Getting out is the difficult part." The members of the team leave the hideout and begin to walk back to the vehicles. The barking is now louder and the echo of metal bars being struck together ricochets through the air.
"The Taliban sound an alarm to let their supporters know the police are in the area. It's a call to arms. I have lost colleagues because of this."
We run back to the vehicles with the suspects handcuffed, leaving the Taliban's "alarm" in Ittehad town and returning to the relative safety of the police compound.
Just a few days earlier I had attended the funeral of Superintendent Mohammed Iqbal. He was killed in a Taliban attack outside his police station at the end of a 14-hour shift. He became the 164th officer to die on duty in a 12-month period. The Taliban hunters are in no way a specialist force. Many of them have no formal anti-terror training, and on some days even bullet-proof vests and armoured vehicles are difficult to come by.
Massacre
"We have been stretched to breaking point. It's easy to fight the Taliban in the north of Pakistan because there is a clear target," says officer Ijaz. "But in Karachi it's very difficult because you don't know who your enemy is. They hide out in the slums. We are in a real war."
His force is making some progress, on paper at least. The number of officers killed on duty is down from 156 in 2014 to 79 in November 2015. "The government anti-Taliban operation in Waziristan has been a great success. The Taliban are finally retreating," he tells me.
The military operation "Zarb e Azab" or "Sharp Strike", launched last summer, has been hailed as a success by Pakistani officials. But some fear the operation has simply driven militants from their Waziristan stronghold, further into Pakistan's urban centres. The Taliban struck a busy school in the city of Peshawar late last year, murdering 152 people, including 133 children. They claimed the attack was in response to the Zarb e Azab operation.
The massacre sparked unprecedented outrage in Pakistan, with peace rallies being held in every Pakistani town and city. The government lifted the moratorium on the death penalty, outraging human rights groups and doing nothing to lift the woefully low conviction rate.
Officer Ijaz tells me this is now the biggest hurdle in tackling violent extremism in Pakistan. "Testifying in court against the Taliban is a risk that many people are just not willing to take. It can often take 10 years or more for a case to go through the courts. Justice delayed can often be justice denied. Without changes in the system the battle with the Taliban can't truly be won."
At the time of writing, the suspects arrested on the night raid have been charged with conspiracy to kidnap and multiple counts of terrorism against the state. They are still awaiting trial.
Panorama: The Taliban Hunters will be broadcast on Monday 14 December at 20:30 GMT on BBC One.
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The US operations of Atari have filed for bankruptcy protection. | The maker of the ground-breaking video game Pong is seeking to separate from its loss making French parent Atari SA.
Atari Inc, together with Atari Interactive Inc, Humongous Inc. and California US Holdings Inc. want to secure independent funding to develop digital and mobile games.
Atari said in December it was looking to raise cash and was talking to investors.
In a statement, the companies said, "with this move the US based Atari operations seek to separate from the structural financial encumbrances of their French parent holding company, Atari SA".
Atari SA, formerly known as Infogrames SA has been struggling financially for years.
The US operations of Atari have shifted their business from retail games to digital games in recent times and have become a growth engine for Atari SA.
"The Chapter 11 process constitutes the most strategic option for Atari's US operations as they look to preserve their inherent value and unlock revenue potential unrealized while under the control of Atari SA," the statement said.
Atari's Pong was an arcade game credited with helping kick-start the multi-billion pound video games industry but more recent titles include 'Centipede', 'Missile Command' and Rollercoaster Tycoon'.
Neither Atari SA or Atari Inc. were available for comment.
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A man has been charged with assaulting Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage by throwing a milkshake at him. | The Brexit Party leader had given a speech in Newcastle on Monday ahead of the European elections when a drink was thrown at him.
Paul Crowther, 32, of Throckley, Newcastle, has been charged with common assault and criminal damage relating to Mr Farage's microphones.
He is due to appear at North Tyneside Magistrates' Court on 18 June.
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A 55-year-old man has been charged with a number of sex offences including rape.
| The alleged offences took place in Birmingham and Nuneaton in the late 1990s.
Phillip Blackwell, of Launceston, Cornwall, has been charged with four counts of rape, an attempted rape and an indecent assault.
He is due to appear at Leamington Magistrates' Court on Monday, police said.
Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.
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A deadly al-Qaeda attack on an Ivory Coast resort town in March reminded the world that the terror network once led by Osama Bin Laden has not gone away. | But in recent years it has been eclipsed and diminished by the so-called Islamic State group which has attracted global attention, fighters and funds.
So how depleted is the group which in 2001 triggered America's "global war on terror"?
Four experts talk to the BBC World Service Inquiry programme.
Rahimullah Yusufzai: Rise and fall
Rahimullah Yusufzai is the editor of an English daily in Peshawar.
"Because of his education, his travels, his access to modern education and media, Osama Bin Laden knew about the world, about politics, and that's why he was a very charismatic leader for al-Qaeda. Before him, the others were fighting separately, but he brought them together, and then tried to build a coalition against the US and the Western world.
"Al-Qaeda used to say it was the first real jihad - or holy war - after decades, and that's why people flocked to [its training camps in Afghanistan].
"They thought this is the best opportunity to fight jihad and to get trained in modern warfare. They trained thousands. These people eventually became the torch-bearers of jihad in the rest of the world.
"In August 1998, the US attacked the same camp where I had met Osama Bin Laden in May 1998 because the US embassies [in Tanzania and Kenya] had been attacked. So the Americans were already trying to kill or capture him.
"Then after the 9/11 attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan, with the idea of destroying al-Qaeda, and removing the Taliban from power, because the Taliban had harboured Bin Laden. The Taliban were defeated in a few weeks - they had no answer to the American air power - but did not suffer many casualties. They just retreated, and melted away in the villages.
"When the Americans invaded, al-Qaeda decided to go to Tora Bora on the border with Pakistan. The Americans came to know Bin Laden was there in December 2001, and bombed heavily. I was told it was the heaviest bombing since World War Two on one target.
"Bin Laden was able to escape with the help of local Afghans, and came to Pakistan. When they attacked Tora Bora, the Americans were pushing Pakistan to block the border, to deploy a force. Pakistan actually co-operated, and for the first time deployed its troops on the borders.
"Then they launched bigger military action, because the militants were then everywhere. One of the biggest achievements is that the militants lost their strongholds. They were in control of many areas - Swat, Bajaur, Momon, South Waziristan, North Waziristan. They lost almost all these areas.
"But I think the death of Osama Bin Laden was the biggest setback, because he was the founder, the financier, the inspiration. It has never really recovered from that loss, because the new leader Dr Zawahiri is not as important, and does not have that status or authority which Bin Laden had."
Professor Fawaz Gerges: The splintering
Professor Fawaz Gerges teaches at the London School of Economics and is a prolific writer about Jihadi groups.
"Al-Qaeda has always been a top-down elitist movement. Decisions were made from the top and everyone followed. But once al-Qaeda dispersed after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, al-Qaeda fractured, decentralised. The various elements spread near and far into Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran and then Northern Iraq.
"[In Iraq] Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was obsessed with the Shi'ites as a dagger in the heart of Iraq and the Muslim world, plunging Iraq into all-out civil war between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites, carrying out thousands of suicide bombings against the Shi'ites.
"Bin Laden and his second-in-command Zawahiri tried to rein Zarqawi in many times. We have several letters of Bin Laden urging him to stop the bloodshed against the Shi'ites, to keep the focus on the far enemy, the Americans: 'don't lose the fight in Iraq'.
"Zarqawi ignored their pleas. He became the central focus of the young men and women who wanted to join al-Qaeda. In many ways, al-Qaeda in Iraq overshadowed al-Qaeda central. He became the real action man who could deliver death and vengeance against the enemies.
"Many Sunnis realised - belatedly - that Zarqawi was not their friend. He was their enemy because he had his own agenda. The Americans did not defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq: it was the Sunnis who revolted against him. Many fighters went underground, were killed.
"But a core of al-Qaeda in Iraq survived, and bade its time waiting for the right opportunity to strike back. This came in 2010.
"2010 was a very critical period because of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He reconstructed both the military and the operational structure of al-Qaeda in Iraq to bring in hundreds of skilled officers of the former army and police of Saddam Hussein. It became the Islamic State of Iraq.
"[When Islamic State captured Mosul in 2014 and declared a Caliphate] it was a shattering blow to al-Qaeda central. In many ways the Isis (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) takeover of Mosul was really the takeover of the global jihadist movement. Isis was not just going for the Islamic state. It was also making a bid for the leadership of the global jihadist movement. They have stolen the show."
Charles Lister: Under the skin
Charles Lister is a fellow at the Middle East Institute, a US think tank, and over the past two years has had regular meetings with the leaders of over 100 Syrian armed opposition groups.
"Al-Qaeda has adapted to playing a long game strategy in which the focus has become more on building alliances and socialising local communities into being a long-term and durable base from which it can eventually launch its more trans-national objectives.
"It was a reassessment of al-Qaeda's PR strategy, the way it seeks to present itself to local populations from within which it operates, and a lot of lessons were learned from Iraq.
"In his guidelines for jihad, Zawahiri was extremely keen to send a message that instead of [killing civilians], we should fight the fight that the civilians themselves want to fight. That means military targets, security targets, not public markets or mosques, which al-Qaeda's affiliates in Iraq had previously been doing.
"In the winter of 2012/2013, [al-Qaeda's Syrian branch] Jabhat al-Nusra began to present itself not just as an armed movement, but also a social one.
"It took over the management of bakeries, and forced their owners to charge a lower price. Jabhat al-Nusra was directly involved in trucking and delivering gas, bread, water and other staple food supplies to the civilian population at a far cheaper price than had been available before, and it was at that period that we started to see Jabhat al-Nusra actually gain support.
"There was a series of interesting letters found in Mali in a building that had been controlled by al-Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). One was from AQIM overall leader Abou Mossab Abdelwadoud in which he instructed his fighters to pull back from the extreme measures they had been trying to impose on the people.
"He was essentially describing Mali to his fighters as a baby, saying 'Your focus right now should be on teaching it the basics, raising it to be a true Muslim, and only years from now will you then be able to introduce the more harsh norms because the people will understand what is expected of them.'
"We are seeing that replication of the long game model in Yemen with extraordinarily successful consequences so far. It's no surprise that we don't hear about this very much in the news anymore: it has become almost impossible to differentiate who is al-Qaeda and who is a tribal fighter in southern Yemen.
"This new strategy makes al-Qaeda more dangerous. It shows that al-Qaeda is willing to be pragmatic, to cut back some of its religious expectations for the sake of building popular support that will gain it strength in the long term. That is something that Isis has essentially refused to do, and that means that we face that much more of a challenge of rooting it out of these societies.
"My fear is in the long term, al-Qaeda is going to be that much more durable, and the threat that they will pose will be the same as they posed in the period immediately prior to 9/11."
Katherine Zimmerman: A durable threat
Katherine Zimmerman is a research fellow at the conservative US think tank the American Enterprise Institute.
"Al-Qaeda is much stronger than people realise.
"The al-Qaeda donors haven't changed that much over the years - very conservative sheiks, particularly in the Gulf - but when you look at how al-Qaeda makes money and runs day to day as an organisation, it's less based on donations and more based on the fact that it controls terrain on the ground and taxes directly the population or benefits from trade imports, exports, etc.
"So it's very hard to isolate al-Qaeda's finances and prevent it from funding itself as long as it controls terrain.
"The hierarchy is no longer contained in a single geographical space but dispersed throughout the affiliated groups. The al-Qaeda affiliates are really no less dangerous than the al-Qaeda core group that we think about. They all have that same capability to conduct an attack.
"Al-Zawahiri certainly doesn't have the charisma that Osama Bin Laden had and that has been the main critique against him. But we've seen al-Qaeda start to shape and build up new leadership, and these include leaders in Yemen and in Syria in particular.
"[Yemen-based Saudi militant Ibrahim al-Asiri] is a bomb expert and he has an incredibly innovative mind. The man has trained other individuals and he's the mind behind the underwear bomb, the bombs disguised as printer cartridges and various other plots where they escaped intelligence agency's detection because of how well these bombs were designed. He's certainly a threat in terms of being able to bring a capability to the table for al-Qaeda.
"We are in danger of underestimating and frankly missing the threat. The real risk we face is fighting Isis and ignoring the presence of al-Qaeda. The Islamic State has seized control of vast swathes of land but it controls the population through coercion.
"Al-Qaeda doesn't control the population. It has the support of it. That's much, much more difficult to counter."
The Inquiry is broadcast on the BBC World Service on Tuesdays from 12:05 GMT. Listen online or download the podcast.
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RAF Lossiemouth launched a Quick Reaction Alert with Typhoon jets for first time from the Moray base, it has been revealed. | They were scrambled to identify aircraft detected in international airspace.
The aircraft, identified as Russian military 'Bears', did not enter UK airspace.
RAF Lossiemouth did not reveal when the incident happened.
The 6 Squadron RAF Typhoon fighters were based in Leuchars and arrived at their new base in Moray in June.
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Furlough extension continues the habit of going beyond expectations, and at vast expense. It' is explicit recognition that this crisis is reaching well into autumn, at least. Business lending remains sluggish, and is not being linked to job retention - but that could change. | By Douglas FraserBusiness and economy editor, Scotland
Rishi Sunak is getting a reputation for going well beyond expectations in splurging money.
Asked for a 75% contribution to wages back in March, he surprised with 80%. Asked for an extension to September, he's gone for the end of October.
It's hard to believe this is the same Conservative Party that came to power 10 years ago, and dedicated itself to getting the deficit down.
A furlough, or Jobs Retention Scheme, was originally planned to cover 1 March to the end of May. It was then extended to the end of June.
Now, it's being extended to October. The idea is that those on furlough can still get 80% of pay (up to £2,500 per month) but after the end of July more of that cost should be met by employers.
How much more? We don't know yet. It may be that there are different tapers for different sectors. Those with most cash flow problems, such as hospitality, may have to pay less towards payroll costs.
The ultimate cost of this enormous wage subsidy for, currently, 7.5m employees of 930,000 firms will depend on how fast government tapers its support. But it will be extremely expensive.
And we've yet to have confirmation of the parallel scheme to support most of the UK's five million self-employed workers, which will surely have to follow, and will add many billions more.
Points worth noting about this: for the first time, we have an explicit concession that the economic crisis is going to last well into autumn.
Job creation
There's a concession to those who said there has to be a part-time option on furlough.
Likewise, there will be an opportunity to get access to training while on furlough. That adds a lot of useful flexibility, and could be allied to the long-running efforts to get productivity up.
The chancellor also said he's talking to trade unions and the CBI employers group about job creation schemes to help those who don't get through to the other side of the crisis in the same job.
But would he provide the funding to support one part of the country continuing lockdown longer than another, Mr Sunak was asked in the House of Commons?
He didn't say, but his statement talks about "continuing to work closely with the devolved administrations to ensure the scheme supports people across the Union". That looks intended to reassure, without committing.
Business interruption
Support schemes for business continue to focus on loans. The Treasury figures released with the furlough announcement do not all make for reassuring reading.
Yes, the Bounce Back Loan is reaching a lot of small firms, with 100% government guarantees for up to £50,000. Nearly £8.4bn has been loaned to 269,000 firms. A further 95,000 applications have been lodged, and either rejected or await processing.
But the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans (CBILS) are still getting stuck in the banks which administer them, and which want to make sure they're protected for the other 20%.
With 71,000 applications, only 36,000 have been approved, with loans totalling £6.1bn. That's a long way from reckoning of what companies currently need.
For the separate CBIL scheme for larger businesses, there have been 358 applications and only 59 have been approved so far.
Pivot to redundancy
What the business loans still lack, and perhaps deliberately so, is any link to job retention. The two strands of support are not aligned.
It could be that companies taking loans could be required to retain workers, or more likely, incentivised to do so. In the US, as I've noted before, some loans can be turned to equity if employers retain their workforce levels for three years.
For those firms that are seeing past October to a structural change in what they do and how many people they need to do it, a pivot from furlough to redundancy seems to be under way.
That goes for British Airways, Rolls-Royce aero-engines and P&O Ferries. It even applies to the charity National Trust for Scotland, shedding more than half its workers having had 70% of staff on furlough.
Particularly the big corporates, and moreso those with rich foreign backing, are facing criticism for taking furlough money, intended to sustain employment, only to turn around to furloughed workers and sack them.
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Greece's school exam season has arrived. But for many now facing the final-year tests known as the Panhellenics, the stress is twofold: last-minute cramming and the knowledge that they'll soon enter the worst jobs climate in Europe. | By Mark LowenBBC News, Athens
At 64.2%, youth unemployment in Greece is the highest in the continent. Those between the ages of 16 and 25 are now the crisis generation.
At the Spoudi school in Athens, dreams have been put on hold. The school leavers longed for a stable job, for a future full of opportunity. But instead, unemployment and uncertainty beckon.
In a final maths class, students pore over complex algebra problems. But how to stay positive in today's Greece might just be the most difficult equation to solve.
"I'm not sure about my future," says Nathalie Sheldon, an 18-year-old who hopes to study economics. "I think I won't stay in Greece because there's high unemployment and bad salaries. A lot of kids my age feel the same. If we're here and nobody gets the life they want, why should we stay?"
Among the other students, few are optimistic. One thinks of leaving Athens for the countryside, another of going into farming because of a lack of opportunities.
"In Greece today you can't do what you want," says Alexandros Delakouras, 17. "It will be very difficult to get a job in my country but I will try hard." He adds with a smile: "Maybe, with God's help, I'll succeed."
Before Greece's first bailout three years ago - and the spending cuts that ensued - unemployment in the country was under 12%. Now it's at 27%.
And among the youth, it's more than doubled from around 31% in May 2010. Recession has hit hard but it's the austerity demanded by the country's international lenders that has had such a devastating impact.
Brain drain
And so the brightest, like 23-year-old law graduate Christina Zahagou, are leaving. Greek emigration to Germany jumped by more than 40% last year. She is now following suit after failing to find work.
"I don't want to leave my friends and family," she says. "Abroad I will struggle to find friends, at least in the first year. But I have no other choice. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make because I can't find anything hopeful here in Greece."
The brain drain is quickening. A recent study by the University of Thessaloniki found that more than 120,000 professionals, including doctors, engineers and scientists, have left Greece since the start of the crisis in 2010.
And when young, talented Greeks are emigrating, it spells trouble for the future. An ageing population and declining birth rate could stunt Greece's longed-for growth.
"The economy won't recover," says Christina, "because the educated ones will go abroad and only the older people will stay here. That means Greece can't develop."
Positive action
But some young hopefuls are fighting back. The youth start-up scene here is growing fast. One success story is Glovo, recently launched by a group of twenty-something entrepreneurs. The company finds and trains volunteers for large events, and won funding from investors in a recent start-up competition.
At Art Athina, the capital's international art fair, a few dozen volunteers perform a range of functions, including welcoming visitors and providing information about enigmatic paintings. Co-founder Aris Konstanidis tells me young Greeks must not accept the scourge of unemployment.
"Many people think the financial crisis is a dead end," he says, "but I think it's an opportunity to go out of our comfort zone, shape our future and get rid of all the old negative ways of doing things."
His is a refreshing approach to the problem of youth unemployment, though it is still a rare voice of optimism.
"Many young people in Greece are afraid of trying new things. They do what their parents advise. But now you can't get a job like that.
"We want to mobilise young people to stand on their own two feet. They - we - must become the leaders of Greece."
Even though most of its young workforce is unpaid, the can-do attitude is catching.
Konstantinos Angelosopoulos, 21, has been volunteering for Glovo for five months. He says he's trying to get as much experience as he can.
"I think of the jobless situation all the time. But this is the only way to overcome the crisis. We have to go forward and fight. If we stop and ask what's happening or what am I going to do, nothing will improve."
Traditional attitudes are being profoundly shaken by today's climate - and that could be for the better. But tackling the crisis head-on requires energy and luck, and many here lack both.
This ancient nation is full of youthful vitality. They are the ones the country needs to keep to rebuild it in years to come. But for now they are too often stranded by the crisis - left jobless or pushed abroad, the lost generation of today's Greece.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is about to attend his second summit with US President Donald Trump. But as the North inches its way out of near-total isolation and tentatively engages with the world, the question of what to do about high-profile North Korean diplomatic defectors becomes that much thornier. | By Laura BickerBBC News, Seoul
It can't be easy. Deciding to defect from North Korea can put your life and those you love in danger. For Pyongyang's diplomats, who have enjoyed a life of prestige and power, the danger in defecting is that much more real.
These men and women are the Juche ideology foreign front line.
Their main role is to raise capital for the regime, but although they are the elite in their home country, they are unlikely to receive such a privileged position anywhere else. Ambassadors and their staff are told to promote Pyongyang's point of view around the world, and will often seek out pro-North Korean groups in their respective countries. They also monitor local news, screening TV networks and newspapers for any mention of the Kim family.
The latest development comes from Italy, where the government has expressed concern about the fate of the school-age daughter of Jo Song-gil, the North Korean ambassador to Italy who fled his home in Rome last year. Another high-profile diplomatic defector, Thae Yong-ho, had told reporters he understood she was forcefully repatriated back to Pyongyang.
The ultimate traitors
It's almost impossible to verify such claims but it does set out just how high the stakes are, particularly for defectors who come from an elite so privileged they are trusted enough to represent the country abroad.
The higher your prestige, the higher the risk in leaving. Such a move is unlikely to be forgiven by the Kim regime - some elite defectors say they discovered that their families back in North Korea were punished, sent to prison or, in some cases, they believe members of their families were shot.
They are global ambassadors for the Kim family, the figures who hold up the interests of the dynasty, in the face of an often hostile world. So it stands to reason - by Pyongyang logic - that dissent while working as a diplomat cannot be tolerated or even be seen to be tolerated.
North Korea views diplomatic defectors as the ultimate traitors - because the humiliation is that much starker for the Kims. And yet it happens.
Han Jin Myung was a second secretary in Vietnam and told NK News that he defected after failing to share with ministry officials the money he made from selling some items. He said diplomats were not paid well, and he received around $400 (£348) a month. His seniors reported him to Pyongyang and he felt he was in danger. He said he was certain he would be severely punished and quickly made the decision to leave.
'South Korea must embrace North Koreans'
Diplomats who spend time abroad have been allowed to see how other countries live and work. They have gained a taste of another life; their children may have spent time at international schools. This glimpse of freedom may give them a taste for more.
Despite the latest claims about the fate of his daughter, information is still scarce about the 48-year-old Jo Song-gil and his family. They were last seen in late November and are thought to be seeking asylum in a third country - some believe he's on his way to the United States. The details of this case remain murky and we may yet find out more about what has really happened.
But these high-profile defectors also raise something of a dilemma for South Korea, particularly at a time it is forging a cautious camaraderie with the North.
Here in South Korea, such defectors have historically been given protection and for good reason. Yi Han-yong, a nephew of Kim Jong-un's half-brother, was shot dead outside his home in a suburb of Seoul in 1997 after publishing a book about the Kim regime. His attackers were never caught.
The former deputy ambassador to London, Thae Yong-ho, who defected in 2016, told reporters that he felt the South Korean government should be more proactive - but he no longer believed Mr Jo should seek shelter in the South.
"South Korea needs to show that it is willing to embrace North Koreans," he said in a press conference.
"But the current situation doesn't seem to do that. Neither the South Korean government nor its citizens express their intention to rescue Jo and his family after their defection, and I'm saddened by the current situation."
"We need to tell North Korean citizens that the Republic of Korea is their motherland. And Korea would welcome any North Korean citizens who would want to come to this country."
But the warmth of the welcome in the South is not guaranteed. Conservative governments have often used defectors to tarnish the North's image and highlight its human rights abuses.
But in contrast, the liberal President Moon Jae-in is pursuing a policy of engaging with the North and his administration may be wondering what line to take.
The South has long held the ideal that all Koreans are entitled to political and economic freedom. But the North often accuses Seoul of orchestrating these defections to undermine and embarrass them. This is not the kind of argument Mr Moon's government wants to have right now.
Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry does not hide its outrage and disgust at those who speak out, such as Thae Yong-ho.
Although not specifically naming him, they described him as "human scum" and were critical of the South Korean government for allowing him to speak at the National Assembly.
We asked Seoul's Ministry of Unification and the Foreign Ministry about concerns that North Koreans were not being embraced.
The Ministry of Unification spokesperson was very careful about the wording of the statement and said its position was that it "will accept all North Korean defectors who wish to come to the South of their own free will".
Seoul does provide material assistance to North Korean refugees. There are now nearly 32,000 who have made the perilous journey to South Korea. They are aided in their new lives, offered a place to live and and education.
But the Ministry of Unification seems to be concerned about how defectors' actions are perceived in the North.
Last year, just days after the first meeting between President Moon and Kim Jong-un, one politically active defector was preparing to launch balloons into the North with brochures and flash drives. He has done this for 15 years. But he said he received a call asking him not to.
When the group decided to go ahead with the balloon launch, they were surrounded by police.
Kim Myong Song, a North Korean defector who is a journalist for one of South Korea's biggest daily newspapers, the Chosun Ilbo, was barred from covering an event at the truce village of Panmunjom. It has been his job since 2013 to cover North-South affairs, but the Unification Ministry said it had to take "necessary steps" because of the "special circumstance" of this meeting.
"It hurts me," he told the BBC.
"Defectors are South Korean citizens. We left an oppressive dictatorship and came to South Korea, placing all our trust on the democratic South Korean government. However, this government decided to exclude a defector journalist even when the North Korean government did not make a request.
"It makes me feel vulnerable and fear that South Korean government may disown us if it is necessary and they will not come to protect us."
Potential mine of information
And yet there are benefits to welcoming North Korean defectors, particularly those that come with links to the rulers of the country.
Kim Jeong-bong, the former chief director of Seoul's Institute for National Security and Strategy, told us that right now, Jo Song-gil would be a mine of information.
"We can learn from Jo about the explanation North Korea has given for its recent diplomatic strategy and what kind of orders it has given to elite diplomats in regards to the last three South-North summits, and the US-North summit," he said.
"It is possible that Kim Jong-un told his diplomats that he is trying to work with South Korea to gain economic support, or he may have said that he will never give up nuclear weapons even if he is are engaging with US.
"Especially with Jo. His father and father-in-law were both high level diplomats. His father-in-law was a foreign ministry ceremonial secretary, which means he was sitting next to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il when they were meeting international leaders. It is possible if Jo comes to South Korea, we can fit the pieces of the puzzle together and fill in the gaps of 70 years of North Korean diplomatic history."
Mr Kim believes Mr Jo has gone to the United States and we are unlikely to hear more about his case for some time while Washington and Seoul are in talks with Pyongyang.
"It is very possible that US won't make any statement about it. When Chang Sung Gil, the Egypt ambassador, and his brother Chang Sung Ho, at the North Korean trade mission in France, went to the US, it kept its silence.
"It is highly likely Jo's case becomes like that."
With a second summit between the North and the US just days away, many will consider that a prudent approach.
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At Syriza HQ, after about two hours poring over election results scribbled on notepaper, amid discarded cans of Amstel, they broke out a fresh packet of Marlboros and breathed. "We have lost. It's great for us," one woman beamed at me. | Paul MasonFormer economics editor, Newsnight
The party's MPs arrived, their suits and slick hair incongruous amid the Che T-shirts and the stubble. The press were crammed into rooms where the party's filing system sits: box files, with the names of obscure conferences stencilled onto them in felt-tip.
Greece had come within three percentage points of being ruled by a party whose HQ is smaller than a primary school. Syriza - an alliance of communists, feminists and ecologists - had avoided having to run the army of a Nato country and the economy of a collapsing state.
New Democracy's three-point victory, under the Greek system, gives them 50 MPs on top of their proportional allocation, and with the support of the rump of the former ruling party Pasok, and that of Syriza's rival eurocommunist group, Democratic Left, should give them a working majority in parliament.
The victory was delivered not only by ND's party machine, but by the hundreds of thousands of liberal and socialist voters who gritted their teeth and voted for the conservatives to stop Syriza. I heard stories of "progressive" middle-class people - with antagonisms toward ND going back generations - flying back from remote islands just to vote for Samaras.
Syriza's leader Alexis Tsipras not only conceded early, but assured the press he would not try and form a coalition of his own: that is, he would not be waiting to tempt Pasok and the Democratic Left into a Syriza-led coalition if the main talks fail. Likewise, he would not be joining a government of national unity.
Thus, last night's result leaves an open goal for the European Union to resolve the Greek crisis.
Mr Samaras can form a coalition committed to obeying the EU/IMF and the latter can - if they wish - soften their demands for austerity to the point where the Greek economic death-spiral is stopped. Spain can now go bust on its own timetable, instead of one dictated by a Greek exit from the euro.
And then the problems begin. The over-arching problem is the severe social pain and disintegration austerity has brought to Greece: 22% unemployment; 1,000-euro one-off tax demands to pensioners; falling incomes, closing shops and bars; quiet motorways. Despair.
'Urban myth'
Before election day I met the boss of a clothing store who is also big in the retail association. I expected him to rail at me - but about business. Instead he railed at me about fascism: "They marched down our streets like an army. Black helmets, no banners, big sticks. It looked so much like the riot police that I said to my friend "what - are the police now fighting the police?" But it was Golden Dawn."
He went on to allege that the Greek fascist party had major links with organised crime, and that its networks extended not only into the riot police but to police involved in facilitating the drugs and human trafficking trade. This, like much of what worries Greeks, is unprovable - but his fears were logical.
For Syriza is a phenomenon produced by crisis. It had about 15,000 members before the May election and has just scored 27%. In the rural village where I met young farmers voting Syriza last week, there was no tangible presence for the party.
"Of course we're worried that Tsipras will take us out of the euro," they said, "but we have to vote for him. The old parties have failed. We need change."
If Syriza turns out to be a bubble that deflates, and the crisis is not solved, it is entirely possible that the "despair vote" - both in the cities and the countryside - will switch to Golden Dawn. The party's activists have already created an urban myth around themselves: they lead old ladies safely to the ATM so that the muggers cannot get them. They evict "troublesome" migrant tenants, repaint the flat for free and hand the keys to the owner.
"They only had to do this a few times," says one of my contacts in the anti-capitalist movement, "for it to become an urban myth. Many of the anarchists now accept that Golden Dawn has 'appropriated the myth of violence': the image that they are the guys who can take on the authorities and win. Before, it was the [anarchist] black bloc in their balaclavas who had that kudos. Now it's them."
Some political activists now speak of a "low-level civil war" between fascists, migrants, anarchists and the riot police in the poor areas of the big cities. Even if this is hyperbole, it reflects the reality that the Greek state - which could not bring itself to find the Golden Dawn MP it had issued an arrest warrant for, following his televised assault on two female MPs - may struggle to handle the unrest that is building.
'Vortex of failure'
Antonis Samaras' task is huge. His own party is an uneasy coalition of technocrats and traditional clientists, and there is no money to fund the old politics of patronage. His programme rests on getting the EU to double the amount of time given before Greece has to meet its deficit targets - and getting the IMF to allow ND to cut taxes instead of raising them.
Then, through a combination of rapid privatisation and the removal of employment rights, Samaras has to restructure the economy in a direction that is directly opposite, and probably just as radical, to the way half the population just voted.
Pasok, the former socialist ruling party, eviscerated again last night, has to ride shotgun for this all the way.
There is a chance it will work, if the EU rapidly cuts Greece some slack, adding in structural funds to launch a mini-Marshall Plan for Greece. This is not certain, since it's now clear there are strong voices in Berlin that would see Greece forced to exit - if not now then at some point soon along the road.
In addition, the EU banking system is struggling to avoid being dragged into a vortex of failure. Last night for Europe was about avoiding a detonation, not defusing the bomb itself.
Soon the media will move on from Greece but the country's plight should remain of deep concern to the rest of the world. Two years of medicine prescribed by the Troika not only threatened to kill the patient but the doctor as well.
If the new coalition fails - either because it is not strong enough or the EU's help is not strong enough - it's very clear what the alternatives are. The combined vote of the Marxist left last night was 37%. The fascists maintained their 7% vote - missing fourth place by just 40,000 votes.
It is entirely within the grasp of the European centre to make that the high point of the left and right. But it depends on decisively resolving the paralysis in Berlin and Brussels.
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We are all aware of the dangers of too much sun, especially for children. But has the safe sun message inadvertently created vitamin D deficiencies, resulting in a resurgence in rickets?
In this week's Scrubbing Up, orthopaedic expert Dr Joe Reed - who is based at Southampton Hospital - says the Department of Health needs to do more to make parents and doctors more aware of the dangers of not enough sun. | By Dr Joseph M ReedChildren’s Orthopaedics, Southampton General Hospital
I recently watched families - wrapped head to toe in multiple layers - make the most of some Sunday afternoon winter sun.
However, my enjoyment was slightly capped by the concern in the back of my mind that, despite beautiful days like these, childhood rickets in the UK is back.
Tiny Tim
Rickets - childhood vitamin D deficiency resulting in skeletal pains or bony deformities - was, until recently, thought to be a thing of the past in our developed society and historically associated with poverty-stricken communities or fictional characters such as Tiny Tim from Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
At Southampton General Hospital, we have recently uncovered evidence to suggest a resurgence of vitamin D deficiency amongst children.
Our study has shown that this is not confined to the lower classes or ethnic minorities, with those from the leafy suburbs and coastal towns just as likely to be affected.
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble compound essential for bone growth and mineralisation during childhood.
It is produced in the skin following exposure to ultraviolet B light with a small amount occurring naturally in foods such as oily fish, eggs and meat.
Without vitamin D the body is unable to effectively process the minerals calcium and phosphorous; essential for bone growth and maturation during childhood.
Bone deformities
Vitamin D deficiency is a major factor in the development of bone deformities including rickets, genu valgum ("knock knees"), genu varum ("bowed legs") and non-specific musculoskeletal pain in children.
Those with severe skeletal deformities are faced with the prospect of long and painful corrective surgical procedures.
Alarmingly, our figures suggest that up to 40% of children presenting to the orthopaedic outpatient service in Southampton have vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency
But with a little knowledge, these conditions are avoidable.
Both the general public and GPs need to be more aware of the dangers of vitamin D deficiency and the benefits that a little sunshine can bring.
Fifteen minutes of sunshine per day at 3pm is nothing to be feared.
We need sunshine to make vitamin D and GPs need to be aware of the initial symptoms of a deficiency.
This means knowing that a young person presenting with bone aches and pains could be deficient and may benefit from a blood test and perhaps referral to an orthopaedic clinic.
Raising awareness
Parents need to be aware that always covering up in the sun and not allowing their children to get a moderate amount of sunshine can lead to problems too.
In both cases, the Department of Health has a role to play in raising awareness. A health campaign to advise both doctors and the public of the benefits of sunshine could help with preventing surgery later.
There is a dearth of strategies in place to deal with vitamin D deficiency and previous initiatives have been inadequate.
The "Healthy Start" scheme, implemented in 2006, targeted the economically disadvantaged with supplements given to children only from very low-income families. Clearly, in light of our recent finding, this is hugely inadequate.
Several theories have been postulated to explain the increase in vitamin D deficiency.
Lack of sunlight is thought to be a major factor, with intentional avoidance and the use of sunscreen due to concerns of skin cancer risk.
In addition, the youth of today are increasingly choosing to substitute outdoor pursuits for indoor activities such as internet social networking and texting and far more commonly, children are being driven to school on a daily basis instead of a good half-hour or so walk.
Worryingly, here we present evidence for an increase in a potentially reversible factor, contributing to significant morbidity in children, yet no effective methods are in place to treat vitamin D deficiency in the UK population.
Clearly, there is an urgent need to reassess the Department of Health strategy in this area. Targeting all at-risk children with vitamin D supplements could be one way.
We are not merely trying to scare or relay the grim reality that a 19th Century epidemic is back, but offering optimism and a cost effective solution to what could potentially expand into a public health crisis.
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In July 2009 the UK Army suffered the worst attack of the Afghanistan campaign on a foot patrol, when five men from the same platoon were killed by bombs and many more were injured. For those who survived there have been lasting effects.
| By Duncan WalkerBBC News
Posted to Helmand, the men of 9 Platoon, C Company, 2nd Battalion The Rifles, were sent to the town of Sangin and given the job of bringing security to the alleyways around the Wishtan bazaar.
For the first month things were relatively quiet, but as their patrols continued the number of bombs they found began to increase.
Early on the morning of 10 July, as they left a disused compound, a device planted by the Taliban exploded. One of the soldiers was killed outright and six others were injured.
A reserve force scrambled to help their injured colleagues, but as the walking wounded set off for base they triggered a second "daisy chain" of connected devices. A further three soldiers were killed outright, with a fourth dying later at Camp Bastion.
Symbolically, the attack took the number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan above the total lost in Iraq.
For the survivors the tour continued, with the threat of further attacks. For many of those involved the impact is still felt, even after their return to the UK.
Rifleman Matthew Ramdeen, 23: Not injured in second blast
"You can take yourself back there very quickly, but it's something you don't want to do. It's a constant battle to forget it," says Matthew Ramdeen, who was very close to the second blast.
Matthew thought he had escaped unscathed, but in the summer of 2011 - more than a year after he left the Army - symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appeared unexpectedly.
"It was difficult to adjust to civilian life as it was before. You're walking down the street, you're thinking am I going to set off an IED [improvised explosive device] with every step I take?"
His mother, Jo, says he was "paranoid" and would check that they were not being followed and was unable to deal with sudden noises.
"He was fine as in he was back in one piece, he wasn't missing a limb," she says.
But, as Matthew became increasingly aggressive towards her, and his brother, Jo insisted that he seek help. A period on anti-anxiety medication followed and he was offered counselling through Combat Stress, which provides support to veterans.
Matthew is now well and is studying engineering at college, with the aim of becoming an RAF pilot.
"The future is bright and I'm definitely looking forward to it - 100%," he says.
Rifleman Kevin Holt, 24: Not injured in first blast
For the other members of 9 Platoon, Kevin Holt is a hero.
Out on patrol, he ran back to help those caught up in the first blast. He saw his close friend Rifleman James Backhouse killed, but used his metal detector to check for further explosives and clear a path to safety.
For his actions he received a Mention in Despatches - a bravery award for those involved in active operations against the enemy.
But, like many other survivors, he cannot escape the memories of what happened.
"I had mood swings, anger problems," says Kevin, who lives near Doncaster. "At one stage I smashed up my room... I don't even know why. I still have dreams, I still get flashbacks. To be honest with you I haven't really been able to sleep."
Diagnosed with PTSD, for which he is receiving treatment, Kevin left the Army in January 2011 and has struggled to return to civilian life.
"I could go for days without talking to anybody, or just seeing anybody. I get into a 'distant' mood... I just want to be alone. At the minute I'm just taking things day to day. I've not really got any plans," he says.
But although things are difficult, he dreams of starting a new life - possibly in the US.
And he takes comfort from talking to friends from his platoon about those killed.
"The lads that were lost over there, they always come up in conversations. It's just all the good memories," he says.
Rifleman Allan Arnold, 20: Back at base
Although he was not on patrol on the day of the attack, Allan Arnold saw the dead and injured members of his platoon as they were brought back to base. His friend Rifleman William Aldridge was among those killed.
"He informed me his closest friend had died. He was crying. There was nothing that I could do to make it easier for him, I couldn't cuddle him, I could just listen," says his mother, Nickie Smith.
Like other members of the platoon, he was monitored by senior officers and given the chance to talk through what had happened.
But back in the UK Allan, who joined the Army at 17 despite attention deficit disorder and severe dyslexia, suffered nightmares and turned to drink.
During Army leave in May 2011 he left his sister Abbie's house in Cirencester early one morning and was later found hanged in a copse. He was 20.
"Allan took his own life because he felt that it was too hard to carry on any more," says Nickie. "The nightmares, the flashbacks, the memories, the loss - it was too much in the end for him to cope with. I suppose he saw it as the only way to get peace."
For Abbie, dealing with his death remains painful. "There'll be a song on the radio that will remind me of him... and you get the gut-wrenching feeling in your stomach like you want to be sick because you're never going to see him again."
Lieutenant Alex Horsfall, 29: Seriously injured in first blast
"It's a date that you remember more than your birthday," says platoon leader Lieutenant Alex Horsfall of the attack.
Severely injured in the first blast, Lt Horsfall was put onto a quad bike trailer by his men - who had also come under fire from several directions - and rushed back to base for treatment.
He had lost part of his lower left leg and part of his left hand in the attack and was flown to Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham for specialist care. He spent three months there, followed by another two years in and out of Headley Court rehabilitation centre.
Yet Lt Horsfall, who has no memory of what happened after the blast, considers himself lucky.
"I had several riflemen looking after me... they did a bloody good job and it is thanks to them that I'm still here," he says.
The Old Etonian left the Army in January 2012, but still works for the Ministry of Defence and does not appear to be suffering mentally.
Now living in central London, he continues to feel responsible for those in his platoon and stresses the importance of talking about what happened.
"There have definitely been a few cases of things like post-traumatic stress and so there are definitely issues," he says ahead of a planned 9 Platoon reunion he has organised.
"Getting everyone together is… quite a good soothing way to sort of deal with things."
Rifleman Peter Sherlock, 24: Back at base
The death of his close friend Rifleman Daniel Simpson in the second blast affected Peter Sherlock deeply.
Having suffered heatstroke the previous day Peter had been kept back at base, but he saw his injured friends brought in.
He left the Army in 2011 to escape the constant reminders of the attack and admits to drinking heavily - in an attempt to forget.
"If I go out when I am down, like really down, then I come back in a right state. I won't be able to walk or talk properly," he says.
Like many of the survivors, Peter started having nightmares after the attack - but he considers himself fortunate.
"You wake up with quite a jump, quite a fright... so sleeping can be pretty rough. But I feel I'm sort of lucky because it happens when I'm asleep... whereas for some of the lads I know they get it when they're awake."
Now living in Southampton, Peter has cut the amount he drinks and wants to be a good parent to his two-year-old daughter, Hope Liberty, despite being separated from her mother.
"I like wondering what she's up to, what she's doing, how she's doing, how much taller she is, what she's into. I'd love to teach her how to sail. That would be a dream," he says.
Life After War: Haunted by Helmand is shown on BBC Three at 21:00 GMT on Wednesday, 23 January.
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An electrical fault could be to blame for a huge fire at Didcot B power station, the fire service has said. | Nathan Travis, deputy chief fire officer at Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue, said they were focusing their investigation on a fault in one of the station's cooling fans.
The blaze on Sunday evening has resulted in half of the station being "non-operational" indefinitely.
Owner RWE npower said it was not known how long the closure would be in place.
At its height, 25 fire engines and about 100 firefighters tackled the blaze, which began in a cooling tower and spread to three others because of strong winds.
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Five London bus workers have died after contracting coronavirus. | Unite said their members had been doing "a heroic job in getting NHS and care workers to their places of work" and described the loss as a "tragedy".
Regional secretary Peter Kavanagh said the union would be assisting families "in every possible way".
Transport for London (TfL) said it was "extremely saddened" by the deaths, while mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was "absolutely devastated".
It is understood three were drivers and two were controllers.
'Heroic effort'
Unite said it had contacted Mr Khan, who shared its view "that bus drivers must be fully protected".
"We are absolutely committed to doing everything in our power to make the driving of buses safe during this unprecedented crisis," said Mr Kavanagh.
Current safety measures include deep-cleaning vehicles, erecting screens around the driver, providing hand sanitiser and blocking off the seats closest to the driver.
Mr Khan said he will continue to make enhancements across public transport in London to ensure there are even higher levels of protection.
"My thoughts are with their friends and families at this awful time," he said.
"I have been clear that our incredible public transport staff, on the buses, tubes, trams and trains, are critical workers, making a heroic effort to allow our NHS staff to save more lives.
"But we all need to play our part too and that means fewer Londoners using the public transport network. Please follow the rules. Stay at home and do not use public transport unless it is absolutely unavoidable."
Gareth Powell, TfL's managing director for surface transport, said they had been offering the bus companies for whom the drivers worked "every support possible".
"The safety of our staff and customers is our absolute priority and we have been working closely with the bus companies, the mayor and Unite to implement a range of changes and improvements to keep the bus network and garages safe for those operating and using it, in accordance with Public Health England advice."
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A stack of pallets has been engulfed by a blaze so large witnesses reported seeing it from several miles away. | Buildings in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, were evacuated over fears the fire in the 50m by 50m stack could cause an explosion.
Crews from across Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire were called to the blaze late on Sunday evening.
It is not thought anyone was injured in the fire which is still burning.
People living near the site were warned to keep their windows and doors shut and urged to stay away from the fire which was reported shortly before 21:00 BST on Sunday.
Firefighters from as far afield as Chesterfield, along with specialist support crews were dispatched to the blaze.
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A Vivid Economics report prepared for the National Grid shows leaving the European Union would put an extra £500m a year on to UK energy bills, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. | By Anthony ReubenReality Check
The discussion centred mainly on the gas market, energy security and the risks of having to rely on supplies from Russia in the distant future.
But, actually, the report says, the short-term risks in the gas market of things such as having to pay more for imports and security of supply are minimal.
The £500m is actually made up of technical factors involving the electricity market, specifically if the UK fails to negotiate continued membership of the Internal Energy Market (IEM).
That cost comes from things such as losing access to more efficient cross-border energy trading systems.
But the report is clear such costs could be avoided if the UK remained part of the IEM, as non-EU members such as Norway have managed.
The report is also concerned about the possibility of it becoming more expensive to finance big investment projects such as new power stations, but that is not part of the £500m.
And it mentions potential problems involving the UK finding "itself excluded from EU 'solidarity principles' in which European nations agree to supply to their neighbours in the event of a gas supply crisis".
It stresses the uncertainty surrounding the forecasts, but concludes: "The impact of Brexit on the UK energy system is very likely to be negative."
But it does not say at least £500m, it says up to £500m.
Reality Check verdict: There is considerable uncertainty about the figure and much of the effect could be avoided by staying in the IEM.
READ MORE: The facts behind claims in the EU debate
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A man has been charged with murder after a 61-year-old man was stabbed to death outside a children's playground. | Vladimir Ivanov, 22, remains in police custody after Glyn Rouse was attacked in Cherry Lane, Crawley, West Sussex, at about 10:30 GMT on Tuesday.
Mr Rouse, of Rushetts Place, was treated by paramedics at the scene but pronounced dead shortly afterwards.
Mr Ivanov, a warehouseman, of Juniper Road, will appear at Crawley Magistrates' Court on Friday.
A post-mortem examination revealed the cause of death as a stab wound.
Police are still appealing for anyone with any information about the incident, the victim or the suspect to come forward.
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The Bishop of Durham, the Right Reverend Justin Welby, will walk into St Paul's Cathedral this morning as one of the Church's newest bishops and emerge as the spiritual leader of some 80 million Anglicans across the world. | By Robert PigottReligious affairs correspondent, BBC News
But even this transformation - confirmed at the moment the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend John Sentamu, reads and signs a "Final Decree" - barely begins to tell the story of the burden the new Archbishop of Canterbury is taking up.
For the new archbishop will inherit a Church whose numbers have declined dramatically in recent decades, and which is struggling to promote a Christian message to an increasingly sceptical and secular society.
It will be seen as his job to unite a Church deeply riven by disputes about women bishops, and, more dangerously, sexuality.
He will assume the leadership of the divided worldwide Anglican Communion - but one which is disputed by many in the autonomous Anglican churches that make it up.
The new archbishop will be garlanded with new titles - "Most Reverend", "Metropolitan", "Primate", even "By Divine Providence" - but he will be no pope, with autocratic power to command obedience.
Undoubted ability
Instead, his will be a post where responsibility far exceeds the power to fulfil it.
Just to add to the pressure on him a huge weight of expectation has already settled on the new archbishop's shoulders.
So who is the man who will emerge from the Great West Door of St Paul's Cathedral today as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury?
For a start, he's relatively inexperienced, ordained a priest only 20 years ago, and a bishop for barely 18 months.
The Rt Rev Justin Welby, 57, is a married man with five children.
He went to school at Eton, and university in Cambridge.
He rose to the top of the oil industry - ending up as treasurer of Enterprise Oil - and giving up a six-figure salary to train as a priest.
He was a vicar in Warwickshire, a Canon of Coventry Cathedral, and the Dean of Liverpool, before being appointed as bishop of Durham.
He's described himself as the "thickest bishop in the Church", and the prospect of taking up residence at Lambeth Palace as "extremely scary", but those with whom he's worked have no doubt about his ability.
John Walmsley, the bishop's boss at Enterprise Oil, describes a family man, whose faith could be seen in his actions rather than what he said, a person perhaps uniquely equipped to meet the challenges faced by the Church's leader.
"He is very determined, he doesn't give up easily. He is curiously relaxed in long-term negotiations... he keeps tension out and keeps the game moving. He can make people feel appreciated. I think that combination of a relaxed approach and an absolute iron will to get things done is a powerful one.
"He has an exceptional ability to work quickly to analyse a situation and come up with solutions."
It is those practical skills, and what he perceives to be a willingness to speak clearly and assertively, that appeal to a former Lambeth Palace insider, the Reverend George Pitcher.
"He's a man who knows his own mind, he's decisive and he has that corporate background where things need to be done today - or a decision made today so that action can be taken tomorrow to put things right. I think that's the principal talent he can bring to bear."
Bleak picture
Mr Pitcher believes the way the Church is run contributes hugely to its problems.
He paints a bleak picture of the waste and sclerosis he claims is hampering its real work - serving the needy and promoting Christianity in parishes in every part of England.
"There are layers of stultifying management... there is duplication of roles, there are people working in silos, without co-operating with other people. It's not like an efficient company in its executive structure, but it's like a medieval court, with clusters and different power groups fighting each other."
Mr Pitcher - who served for a brief and, he acknowledges, frustrating spell as public affairs secretary to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams, saves his most severe criticism for Lambeth Palace itself.
He claims that "like other palaces", Lambeth attracts "courtiers" whose main priority is to maintain a "still millpond" with "a minimum of activity".
Officials at Lambeth would have a rather different perspective, but it is likely to be the new archbishop's judgement that will count.
There are clues as to his attitude from Bishop Welby's first address to the diocesan synod in Durham in which he said he believed in "holy anarchy".
"It is anarchy within an organisation, a sense of diversity, of freedom, and empowering that must move us away from a top-down, centralising, managerial approach that is the curse of the Church of England."
Mr Pitcher's view is that it is precisely the Rt Rev Justin Welby's relative inexperience as a bishop that could allow him to change the system.
"People who've been bishop for a while can't help but turn native, and it's probably just as well that the House of Bishops hasn't had long enough to get at Justin Welby and stop him being who he is."
Practical measures
Who the Rt Rev Justin Welby is, and what sort of leader he'll make will emerge over time, but it's already clear that he will link the mission of the Church, the need to do the work of Christianity, with practical measures.
He has spoken of the need for prayer in the face of economic hardship, but coupled with "heroic action".
In the same address in Durham he described money as "theology in numbers", adding "our sense of who God is... our concern and love for one another are demonstrated in part by our use of money."
He made one priority in the diocese sorting out its finances, giving up his personal chaplain as part of the programme, and the other reversing the drift away from Church membership.
"I think we are called - and it is possible - to turn round the decline in numbers, influence and effect of God's Church that has happened over the last 80 years. We can do that in this diocese, and region, over the next generation or so."
But he believes it will demand rigour in formulating and expressing the Church's point of view, for example in the House of Lords.
"My challenge is to speak in an informed way, and we've got to make sure that we are properly researched. That enables us to be powerful advocates."
He has settled views on the issues dividing the Church - in favour of women bishops, against gay marriage for example - but he will be hard on people who demean their opponents in the Church's impassioned disputes.
As one who has specialised in dispute resolution, often in dangerous circumstances overseas, he believes in "diversity without enmity" as a model for Anglicans.
For the Rt Rev Justin Welby that work begins today.
After the service at St Paul's, and lunch with the Lord Mayor, he has a session of the Commission on Banking Standards, investigating the rigging of Libor.
As he stands on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, the new archbishop might reflect on how at first he resisted the instinct to become a priest.
He has described how the more he felt the "call", the less he wanted to obey it, but in the end "the sense of call was inescapable".
Mr Walmsley, the bishop's old boss at Enterprise Oil, describes that decision from his own perspective.
"When he came in he had what I recognised clearly as a 'resignation face'. I was thinking, 'What can we do to keep him?' I thought he would certainly have had a good offer from a top 10 or top 50 company.
"But as soon as I heard what he was going to do, and the way he was talking about it, I knew we didn't have a chance."
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A promenade in Hampshire has been closed after high tides and stormy seas damaged sea defences. | The walkway at Hill Head near Lee-on-the-Solent was shut east of the sailing club and a safety fence was built.
Fareham Borough Council said the closure was "essential for public safety" as the walkway could collapse.
Work on a permanent solution to repair the sea defences and enable the promenade to reopen is expected to start in January.
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Detectives investigating the theft of two cash machines in County Antrim have charged a 28-year-old man with conspiracy to steal. | A digger was used to steal the machines from Tesco Extra in Antrim at about 03:00 GMT on Friday 6 December.
The machines were recovered a few miles away from the supermarket about 30 minutes later.
The man, who was also charged with possession of a class B drug, is due to appear in court on Tuesday.
On Monday, a 26-year-old man appeared in court accused of conspiracy to steal in relation to the same incident.
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The ousting of Sudan's long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir was arguably the most significant event in Africa in 2019. The BBC's former Sudan correspondent James Copnall went back to Khartoum to find out how much has changed. | "Thawra," they chanted - revolution!
The group flashed freedom signs, encouraging each other on. Freedom! Peace! Justice! All the - by now familiar - demands of the pro-democracy protesters, belted out at deafening volume and with infectious enthusiasm.
But this gathering in November was not an adrenaline-fuelled charge at a group of heavily-armed soldiers by protesters demanding their rights; it wasn't even a political rally, or a gathering of the neighbourhood committees that did so much to keep Sudan's revolution alive.
It was morning assembly at a girls' school not far from the centre of the capital, Khartoum.
This revolution is on the curriculum now, at this school at least. The whole school had gathered in a courtyard, sheltered from the sun by a canvas awning high above.
The girls, aged no more than 13, sang along to recent revolutionary anthems - like the rapper Ayman Mao's Blood.
The song includes some fiercely critical lines comparing the military in charge of Sudan to the Janjaweed - the state-sponsored militias which killed and terrorised so many people in Darfur during Omar al-Bashir's time.
"Live bullets/They say they are rubber/These are Janjaweed/These are thugs." The music, played at top volume, distorted on the school's speaker system, but no matter: it was drowned out by the hundreds of youthful voices anyway.
They put on a play too, set to music, in which schoolgirls playing protesters carrying flowers were gunned down by classmates dressed in military fatigues.
How the revolution happened:
Afterwards the girls spoke about a new sense of pride in being Sudanese, how they had shown themselves and the world what their country could become.
One of their teachers, Salim, sounded a note of caution: the revolution was not over until the military had completely left the scene, he said.
After peaceful protests paralysed Sudan earlier this year, some of its most senior generals toppled Bashir. It was the third time in Sudanese history that an unloved president had been overthrown in a popular revolution.
But this time the generals tried to cling to power. They violently dispersed mass protests in Khartoum, outside the military headquarters. At least 87 people were killed, and there were more deaths outside the capital.
Then the generals cut the internet, trying to break the organising power of the mainly young revolutionaries. Still, the protests continued. Eventually the generals were forced to agree to a civilian government.
But even now, they have five representatives on an 11-member body that has replaced the presidency, called the Sovereign Council.
Many Sudanese worry that one of the protesters' core demands - justice for those killed in the revolution and during Bashir's three decades in power - will be impossible to meet while the generals are still on the scene.
But even in the couple of months since the cabinet was sworn in, things have changed. I saw that one day on Gamaa street, one of the main east-west avenues in the middle of the capital.
A small group of people had gathered outside the prime minister's office to protest against a school closure.
Bashir supporters insulted
They clapped, shouted and ululated, read out a petition, and handed it to an official for consideration. Under Bashir "this wasn't possible," one protester said, "so now we take every chance to make our voice heard".
Around a hundred metres up the road, another protest was taking place: this one was in support of some of the big names of the old regime, who are in jail. Under Bashir, this kind of demonstration would have been broken up with teargas and batons, perhaps worse.
The irony was lost on no-one. Before long, passers-by were hurling insults at Bashir's supporters. That, too, is a new freedom.
More about Sudan's revolution:
You could feel a new openness in almost every conversation. Sudanese have always discussed politics with a level of interest and sophistication rarely matched elsewhere.
But now criticisms are freely and loudly expressed - even of the military. And the old fear of the morality police seems to have dissipated.
In the past, women could be flogged for wearing trousers in public, and men lashed for drinking alcohol, which is still officially illegal.
But I saw people of both sexes gathering to drink tea - and perhaps something a little harder - on the banks of the Blue Nile, while police cars drove past, seemingly spotting no wrong.
There are still plenty of protesters who reject the very idea of this transitional government, which they see not as a way of taking the country to elections, but as a bloodstained and totally unacceptable compromise.
The transitional period could easily founder on the intransigence of the military, or because of the faltering economy. Food prices are rising, as are transport costs.
But back at the school, as the young girls filed out of their assembly, still singing those heroic slogans, it occurred to me that Sudan's latest revolution is so part of everyday life now that its demands will be hard to ignore.
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Police have closed two roads in the Clifton area of Bristol after two walls collapsed, one blocking the highway. | Granby Hill, a busy commuter route to and from Hotwells, was shut after a section of a garden wall fell onto the road.
Nearby Windsor Place is also closed to traffic after a stretch of pavement and wall crumbled into the back garden of a neighbouring street.
It is not known when the roads are due to reopen.
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Journalists in Indian-administered Kashmir are struggling to make ends meet amid a months-long communications blockade that has only partially been lifted. The BBC's Priyanka Dubey visited the region to find out more. | Muneeb Ul Islam, 29, had worked as a photojournalist in Kashmir for five years, his pictures appearing in several publications in India and abroad.
But the young photographer's dream job vanished almost overnight in August last year, when India's federal government suspended landline, mobile and internet services in Kashmir.
The government's move came a day before its announcement that it was revoking the region's special status - a constitutionally-guaranteed provision, which gave Kashmir partial autonomy in matters related to property ownership, permanent residency and fundamental rights.
The controversial decision catapulted the Muslim-majority valley into global news - but local journalists like Mr Islam had no way to report on what was going on. And worse, they had to find other things to do because journalism could no longer pay the bills.
By January, the region had not had access to the internet for more than 150 days, India's longest such shutdown.
"I chose journalism because I wanted to do something for my people," Mr Islam explains. "I covered this conflict-ridden region with dedication until the loss of Kashmir's special status put a full stop on my journey."
In January, the government eased restrictions and allowed limited broadband service in the Muslim-majority valley, while 2G mobile coverage resumed in parts of the neighbouring Jammu region. But mobile internet and social media are still largely blocked.
India says this is necessary to maintain law and order since the region saw protests in August, and there has also been a long-running insurgency against Indian rule. But opposition leaders and critics of the move say the government cannot leave these restrictions in place indefinitely.
Meanwhile, journalists like Mr Islam are struggling.
For months, Mr Islam says, he kept trying to report and file stories and photos.
In September, he even spent 6,000 rupees ($84; £65) of his own money to make two trips to the capital, Srinagar, for a story. But he soon ran out of funds and had to stop.
He then tried to file his stories on a landline phone: he would call and read them aloud to someone on the other side who could type it out. But, as he found out, his stories didn't earn him enough money to cover the cost of travelling for hours in search of a working landline.
Read more on Kashmir
And Mr Islam was desperate for money because his wife was ill. So he eventually asked his brother for help, finding work carrying bricks on a construction site in his neighbourhood in Anantnag city. It pays him 500 rupees a day.
Mr Islam is not the only journalist in Kashmir who has been forced to abandon their career for another job.
Another journalist, who did not want to reveal his name, says he had been working as a reporter for several years, but quit the profession in August. He now plans to work in a dairy farm.
Yet another reporter, who also also wished to remain anonymous, says he used to earn enough to comfortably provide for his family. Now, he barely has money to buy petrol for his motorcycle.
"I have no money because I have not been able to file any story in the last six months," a third reporter, who spoke to the BBC on the condition of anonymity, says. "My family keeps telling me to find another job. But what else can I do?"
In December, people were given limited access to the internet at a government office in Anantnag, but this hasn't helped local journalists. The office, Mr Islam says, is always crowded and there are only four desktops for a scrum of officials, students and youngsters who want to log on to respond to emails, fill exam forms, submit job applications or even check their social media.
"We have access for only for a few minutes and the internet speed is slow," he explains. "We are barely able to access email, forget reading the news."
What's more, Mr Islam says those who work at the office often ask customers to show them the contents of emails. "This makes us uncomfortable, but we don't have a choice."
Many journalists say that they have been completely cut off from their contacts for months now, making it hard to to maintain their networks or sources.
They also speak of how humiliating it is to beg for wi-fi passwords and hotspots at the cramped media centre in Srinagar, which has less than two dozen computers for hundreds of journalists.
This has left publishers in the lurch too. "My reporters and writers are not able to file," says Basheer Manzar, the editor of Kashmir Images.
He still publishes a print edition, he says, because if he doesn't do so for a certain number of days in the month, he will lose the license.
But the website continues to struggle, he adds, because most of the readers in Indian-administered Kashmir have no access to the internet.
"I know what is happening in New York through news on the TV, but I don't know what's happening in my hometown."
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All elective surgery due to take place at Guernsey's Princess Elizabeth Hospital on Friday has been cancelled because of a high demand for beds.
| Urgent operations are due to go ahead and two beds at the hospital are being kept free for emergency admissions.
A Health and Social Services Department spokesman apologised for the "unavoidable" inconvenience.
Deputy chief officer Richard Evans said those affected had been told and the situation would be reviewed on Friday.
He said eight patients had had their operations postponed and they would be rescheduled as soon as possible.
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On 14 June 2017, televisions across the country showed a west London tower block burn. For some, this was history repeating itself - as if five similar fires had simply not been important enough to prevent the deaths of 72 people in Grenfell Tower. | Catherine Hickman was on the phone when she died. It wasn't a panicked call or an attempt to have some last words with a loved one.
As a BBC Two documentary recounts, she had been speaking to a 999 operator for 40 minutes, remaining calm and following the advice to "stay put" in her tower block flat.
As smoke surrounded her, she stayed put. As flames came through the floorboards, she stayed put. At 16:30, she told the operator: "It's orange, it's orange everywhere" before saying she was "getting really hot in here".
Believing to the last that she was in the safest place, she carried on talking to the operator - until she stopped.
"Hello Catherine.
"Hello Catherine. Can you make any noise so I know that you're listening to me?
"Catherine, can you make any noise?
"Can you bang your phone or anything?
"Catherine, are you there?
"I think that's the phone gone [CALL ENDS]"
Miss Hickman was not a resident of Grenfell Tower. The fire in which she and five others died happened in July 2009, at 12-storey Lakanal House in Camberwell, south London. But that same "stay put" advice was given to Grenfell residents eight years later. Many of those who did never made it out alive.
Catherine, a 31-year-old dressmaker, had grown up on a farm in Hampshire with her two sisters, Liz and Sophie. The three were close as children and remained so as adults. Her sisters could not understand why Catherine hadn't left the building.
After the fire, they visited Catherine's home and saw the bottom half of the rooms completely burned out. They could see her sewing machine, melted. Her dressmaking patterns were scorched, but somehow hadn't been entirely consumed by the blaze.
It wasn't until two weeks later Liz and Sophie learned that Catherine had not simply fallen asleep on the sofa, as they had hoped. She had been conscious and was waiting to be saved. For the two surviving sisters, it was a devastating revelation.
The "stay put" instruction is not inherently unsafe - if flats are properly hermetically sealed and fire-retardant. Guidelines state that an apartment in a tower block should withstand a blaze for an hour, giving enough time for inhabitants to be rescued.
But two years before the fire that killed Miss Hickman, the council had refurbished the outside of the building and installed false ceilings, "improvements" which helped the flames spread.
The flats were not fire-resistant for an hour - they were resistant for four minutes. As John Hendy QC, a barrister at the Lakanal House inquest, pointed out, that is "no resistance at all".
The refurbishment involved wrapping the building in a flammable cladding and there was no sprinkler system - both factors in the Grenfell Tower blaze eight years later.
When Sophie Hickman and Liz Watts saw the Grenfell disaster unfold, they were horrified their sister's death apparently hadn't changed anything.
"This is what was really upsetting about Grenfell," says Liz.
"You don't want her death to be in vain. You want answers. You know you want lessons to be learnt and that was the main thing."
Sophie says: "You just think 'this is just crazy - why has this happened again?'"
But the issues go back much further than 2009.
In August 1973, a fire at an indoor holiday complex on the Isle of Man claimed 50 lives, becoming the most deadly conflagration in the British Isles since the Blitz.
Summerland, a huge building capable of accommodating 5,000 holidaymakers, was coated with an acrylic substance called Oroglas, which meant visitors would not only be in a warm, climate-controlled building, but could even get a tan while remaining indoors.
Those behind Summerland hoped this would help dissuade holidaymakers from visiting the sunny Mediterranean in favour of a break in the Manx capital of Douglas.
But Oroglas was highly flammable, so much so that a police officer who attended the blaze took some shards home with him - the substance made an excellent firelighter.
To save money, sprinklers had not been fitted at Summerland.
Sally Naden was a dancer at the resort at the time of the fire, which was caused accidentally by youths smoking cigarettes. She remembers the "stay put" advice was issued to holidaymakers as the building burned.
"There was an announcement and they said 'nobody panic, there's nothing to worry about'. So people didn't actually move. It was floor-to-ceiling flames and the heat was almost instantaneous.
"It was as if there was a waterfall of flames, that's the way it looked. I can remember somebody throwing their child over the balcony in the hope that someone would catch them."
Ruth McQuillan-Wilson was a five-year-old on holiday with her family.
"Dad had spotted smoke coming out through a ventilation shaft and an announcement was made from the floor. It was smelting and burning lumps from the roof," she says.
"It fell on people's backs, a lot of people had back injuries. Dad's hair was on fire. And then we had to run through the flames.
"I was badly burnt at that point and I thought 'I'm going to die in front of all these people'.
"We had to escape over bodies, and I looked down at my hands and I couldn't understand what was wrong. The fingers were webbed, like a duck's feet. The skin was just all melted."
As parents and their children were dying, people were still told to stay where they were.
An inquiry after the fire recommended the installation of sprinklers in all large buildings and that external walls of large buildings should be fire resistant.
One of the firefighters who responded to Summerland, Godfrey Caine, says that his view ever since that day is "if you have a fire, get people out".
A disaster like this should never have happened again.
But nearly 18 years later, in April 1991, the newly-installed cladding on a tower block in Huyton, Merseyside, caught fire.
Knowsley Heights was well known as an eyesore, and in the mid-1980s the Conservative government launched Estate Action - a scheme to improve living conditions in tower blocks.
Cladding was installed as part of the revamp, but this caught fire when a pile of dumped furniture at the base of the tower was set alight by youths.
Caretaker Dave Soo was awoken by the sound of helicopters and ran to help firefighters evacuate the block. When he arrived, the cladding looked like it had disintegrated.
"It was hanging in strings," he says.
Tenth-floor resident Amanda Roberts - who had been pleased with the new cladding, thinking it looked "fantastic" - awoke to encounter thick black smoke and melting windows.
The stairwell of the tower block was effectively a chimney, allowing the flames to race up through the building.
Putting them out was problematic, as firefighter Les Skarrats explains, because the water being sprayed "was just hitting the external cladding and bouncing away".
"How do you deal with that? It was virtually impossible; we could not stop the escalation of that fire. We were lucky that we could get people out in time."
In a similar vein, the exterior panels on Grenfell Tower were installed as "rainscreen cladding". In other words, they were designed specifically to keep water away from the building. Afterwards, several firefighters described their hoses having no effect on the flames.
Nobody was killed in the Knowsley Heights fire, and an investigation afterwards found the cladding was legal.
Eight years later, in June 1999, a similar fire broke out in Irvine, western Scotland - this time with fatal results.
Garnock Court was one of five high-rise housing blocks in the town that had been clad for decorative reasons.
Before the makeover, there had been a number of fires in the blocks and all had been contained. But once the cladding was in place, it was a different story.
The blaze started with a dropped cigarette end in a flat on the fifth floor. The fire broke through a window and climbed the tower on the outside, spread by the plastic cladding.
William Linton - the man who had dropped his cigarette butt - was a wheelchair user and it was feared he had not been able to escape from his flat. Firefighters found his dog dead but there was no sign of Mr Linton himself.
It turned out that the fire had been so hot, he had been incinerated. His death was confirmed only by forensic analysis of the ash.
Again, recommendations were made. Combustible cladding was not to be used on high-rise flats.
A Select Committee report concluded "we do not believe that it should take a serious fire in which many people are killed before all reasonable steps are taken towards minimising the risks".
The report also said the danger of cladding systems was that fire might exit a building at one floor, spread up the building and re-enter on another floor.
It reads like a prediction of Grenfell.
Brian Donohoe, the Labour MP for Irvine at the time of the blaze, was part of that Select Committee and remains incredulous the recommendations were not acted on.
"Why didn't more take place in Westminster? Garnock Court was a lesson that unfortunately hadn't been learned by any of the governments that have been in position.
"The recommendations were received by the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott. But the response was poor and the response virtually kicked what was made as recommendations into the long grass."
Nearly six years later, in February 2005, two firefighters died in a blaze at a tower block in Stevenage, where residents had been told to "stay put".
Michael Miller and Jeff Wornham had gone into the flat in Harrow Court where the fire broke out. The man who lived there was rescued, but the woman, Natalie Close, died.
Mr Miller and Mr Wornham were also killed during the rescue attempt.
The "stay put" policy was based on the idea that people would be safer inside a self-contained flat than walking around a burning building trying to find a way out.
Michelle Camilleri had dialled 999 after spotting the fire from her 14th-floor flat. She was told to stay where she was and did so for more than an hour.
Eventually, with the fire still raging, she decided to leave. She recalls thinking: "If we are going to die, then we're going to die trying to escape."
"I grabbed my children and ran."
The Fire Brigades Union called for a review of the "stay put" policy and for sprinklers to be fitted in all tower blocks.
It wasn't done. Six years later came the Lakanal House fire, in which Miss Hickman and five others died.
Rasheed Nuhu and his family, who were in a neighbouring flat to Miss Hickman, were told to stay in their flat.
He considered the advice to be "preposterous".
"I thought, 'how can you tell people to stay in a burning building?'"
The Nuhus took shelter with their neighbours and another family, obeying instructions to shut themselves in the bathroom and hold damp towels over their faces. Then smoke started coming though a vent in the bathroom wall.
"At that point I thought 'no'," says Mr Nuhu. He and his family ran to the balcony, their friends remained in the bathroom.
The Nuhu family was trapped for 40 minutes before being led to safety by firefighters down a blackened and smoke-filled stairwell.
When rescuers got to the bathroom, they found five bodies: Dayana Francisquini, 26, and her children, six-year-old Thais, and Felipe, three; Helen Udoaka, 34, and her three-week-old daughter Michelle.
Firefighters were metres away from Miss Hickman when a fireball ripped through her flat. They had to leave or they would have been killed themselves.
The coroner recommended that sprinklers should be retro-fitted to all tower blocks, that the "stay put" policy should be reviewed, and cladding should be fireproof. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles did not make the recommendations compulsory.
Harriet Harman was the Lakanal House residents' MP. She saw the building burn and to her it was obvious the "stay put" advice was not working.
She believes more should have been done to prevent future tragedies.
"Whatever all of us did, it wasn't enough," she says. "Because if you've got something that happened and six people died and then exactly the same happens again... and even more people died, then none of us did enough."
In 2016, a scruffy 23-storey tower block in North Kensington, west London, was wrapped in cladding to improve its appearance.
The following year, a faulty fridge-freezer set light to a fourth-floor flat.
The cladding was highly flammable.
There were no sprinklers.
Just before 01:00, the fire brigade received the first call from Grenfell Tower.
Residents were told to stay in their homes.
The Fires that Foretold Grenfell will be broadcast on BBC Two on Tuesday 30 October at 21:00 GMT and afterwards on the iPlayer.
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There is only one US Navy ship in the world held by a foreign nation - the USS Pueblo, a spy ship which was captured by North Korea on 23 January 1968. Its crew were held prisoner by North Korea for exactly 11 months before being released. | By Chloe HadjimatheouBBC World Service
The ship is now moored in a river in Pyongyang and serves as a tourist attraction.
Guided tours are offered by officials who recount how the brave seamen of the People's Army thwarted the US imperialists by capturing the ship in "their territorial waters" - a claim always denied by the US, which says the Pueblo was well within international waters.
In early January 1968, disguised as a scientific vessel, the ship set sail from Japan carrying high-tech communications equipment and a crew of more than 80, many of whom were experts in decoding the messages they hoped to intercept from the North Korean military.
As long as the Pueblo stayed in international waters no one imagined that the North Koreans might try to capture it; so the crew were totally unprepared when the unthinkable happened.
Burning secrets
The Pueblo was off the coast of Wonsan - North Korea's most active and largest cargo and military port - when a local harbour patrol vessel sent a message warning the crew that they should allow them to board.
When the Americans refused, the North Koreans opened fire.
"We didn't have anything to fire back with, the whole notion was that we were to be an unarmed trawler-like vessel; that was our disguise," recalls Lieutenant Skip Schumacher, the Operations Officer on the ship, who was 24 years old at the time.
The captain of the Pueblo tried to buy the crew some time by heading out to sea but the ship's maximum speed was only 15 miles an hour (24km an hour), and no match for the North Korean fleet.
The crew's main concern was to destroy all sensitive material on board before it fell into enemy hands, but without access to modern paper shredders, they had to burn documents in metal barrels or cans - a slow and painstaking process.
The North Koreans - understanding exactly what was going on - opened fire each time they saw smoke emerging from the ship.
In just over an hour, one sailor was dead and about a third of the crew were injured. The captain of the ship, Commander Lloyd M Bucher, decided he had no choice but to surrender.
The crew of the Pueblo were taken ashore, transported to Pyongyang and put in prison.
North Korea's immediate concern was to extract confessions from the crew. They began with Commander Bucher, beating him severely when he refused to admit that the ship had violated territorial waters and that it was a spy ship.
Lt Skip Schumacher recalls the methods they used to finally wear him down.
"They put a gun to his head and said: 'That's it, we're going to kill you.' And they clicked the revolver on an empty chamber, but he still refused," he says.
Finally, when the interrogators threatened to shoot his crew one by one starting with the youngest, Commander Bucher gave in and signed the confession.
Each of the senior crew members was made to sign a similar admission of guilt and these were published as triumphant justification for the capture by the North Korean government.
Back in the United States the news of the Pueblo's capture was greeted with anger and dismay but since there was no intelligence on where the men were being held, a rescue mission was not possible. So the slow process of negotiations began.
Finger of defiance
In Pyongyang the men were being made to write endless confessions of guilt, but they were also busy planning their own acts of defiance - using the North Korean propaganda machine to their own advantage.
On one occasion a group of eight sailors were photographed by the North Koreans to show how well the crew was being treated. In the photograph every sailor held up his middle finger - a lewd gesture that was not recognised by their captors.
"We told them the finger was a Hawaiian good luck sign so they thought that was wonderful," Lt Schumacher remembers.
The photograph was published in Time Magazine, which praised the crew for their courage.
When that issue of the magazine made its way to North Korea and when the captors realised they had been made fools of, they reacted with anger and violence.
"They wanted to know all the double entendres and the slang language that we'd used during the 10 months we had been in captivity, and they beat us up very badly," said Lt Schmacher. "It was really quite brutal."
He said it was then that they began to lose hope.
"It finally dawned on us that there was nothing to prevent the North Koreans from sending us to work in the mines or even just taking us out into the parking lot and shooting us," he recalled.
"It was a traumatic experience not knowing your fate."
Free at last
Then just when the crew were at their lowest, they were told they would be released. The negotiations - and a series of US confessions and apologies - had worked.
But before they left, there was one last act of defiance.
When the North Koreans ordered Commander Bucher to record a thank you message to his captors, he included the word paean which translated as "to praise" in the Korean-English dictionary but sounds like the phrase "to pee on".
Skip Schumacher recalls with humour and pride their final act of resistance as the men walked across the "bridge of no return" at Panmunjom - a village at the border between North and South Korea - to freedom.
"Blasted on the loud speakers for all to hear came the booming voice of Commander Bucher wishing to pee on the North Korean navy and most of all pee on Premier Kim ll-sung!"
Back in the US, Commander Bucher faced a court of enquiry for his surrender to the North Koreans; a court martial was recommended but charges were never pressed.
It was 1989 before the men received medals in recognition of their ordeal.
But there are still some in the US Navy who believe the crew should have fought to the death rather than allow themselves to fall into enemy hands.
Lieutenant Skip Schumacher was interviewed for the BBC World Service programme Witness. You can listen to the programme or browse the archive.
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A man has been charged after a Thames Clipper boat was stolen, sparking a police river chase in London. | The Metropolitan Police said a man was detained and the vessel taken to Canary Wharf dock following the theft at 03:00 BST on Saturday. It said Marine support units intercepted the Clipper.
Joseph Hawkridge, 22, from Chatham, Kent has been charged with taking a conveyance without the owner's consent.
He will appear in custody at Thames Magistrates' Court later.
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A railway timetable introduced to help train drivers cope with leaves on the line in south-east England has come into effect. | Southeastern Trains, which runs services in Kent and East Sussex, said its autumn "leaf fall" timetable would run until 7 December.
Drivers have to take extra precautions, such as braking and accelerating more slowly, with leaves on the line.
Routes with more trees have been described as "particularly vulnerable".
Network Rail said it operated a fleet of special trains throughout autumn that regularly clean the rails to remove fallen leaves, but wet, cold and frosty weather could exacerbate the problems.
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A man accused of allegedly tricking a 92-year-old woman out of £160 for a fake coronavirus vaccination has been charged with fraud and common assault. | David Chambers is accused of administering the fake vaccine at her Surbiton home in London last month.
The 33-year-old, also from Surbiton, is charged with five offences including fraud and going outside in a tier four area without a good reason.
He denied the charges when he appeared before magistrates on Friday.
Mr Chambers was remanded in custody until a hearing on 12 February.
In the UK, coronavirus vaccines are free of charge and available via the NHS.
Related Internet Links
Coronavirus (Covid-19) - UK government response
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Guernsey residents have been asked to give up some time to help other islanders go digital, when the television signal changes in November.
| Nick Gaudion, coordinator of the switch to digital project, said there would be three Advice Centres on 17-19 November.
He said he was recruiting volunteers for the centres, at Beau Sejour, Peninsula Hotel and La Trelade Hotel.
He said the process should be relatively straightforward but for anyone who needed help it was there.
The Citizens' Advice Bureau has already held more than 50 presentations to island charities.
Analogue televisions will go blank after the signal change on 17 November.
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India's leading newspaper The Times of India has been fiercely criticised after it published a photo and tweet about actress Deepika Padukone's cleavage. But Padukone is not the first Bollywood star to clash with the media recently. | By Geeta PandeyBBC News, Delhi
"OMG: Deepika Padukone's cleavage show," the paper tweeted alongside a photo of her from an event last year.
Thousands joined Bollywood celebrities in condemning the newspaper and praising Padukone for speaking out against the tweet.
Her indignant reply - "YES! I am a Woman. I have breasts AND a cleavage! You got a problem!!??" - was re-tweeted more than 7,000 times.
#IStandWithDeepikaPadukone has been India's top Twitter trend for hours and the actress is being lauded for taking on the Times of India.
But she is just the latest Bollywood actress to clash with the media.
Last October, India (and indeed the world) was transfixed by a video of Mallika Sherawat's heated exchange with a female reporter at a press conference where the actress refused to retract her statement that "Indian society is regressive for women".
Sherawat was in India to launch her show The Bachelorette India when the reporter questioned whether Sherawat was right to criticise India in an interview with US magazine Vanity Fair by calling "India regressive and depressing".
An angry Sherawat took on the reporter, saying she was "not going to lie" or "join this hypocrisy that is there in our society".
"With female foeticide, infanticide happening on an almost daily basis; with gang rapes making the headlines of almost every newspaper; with honour killings… I think it's a very, very regressive state for women. And I stand by it," she said.
The YouTube video was shared extensively on Facebook and Twitter and the actress was congratulated for stating an inconvenient truth about the state of Indian women.
Recently, actress Parineeti Chopra clashed with another reporter who asked her why "when girls are young, they like 'it' and when they get old, they start shouting and screaming that the boy exploited them".
A visibly annoyed Chopra asked the reporter what he meant by "it".
She carried on: "We are forcing you to be with us? I'm sorry, that you're so tortured... I think this is ridiculous and disrespectful to say to a girl." Her comments prompted applause from other journalists present at the press conference.
This wasn't Chopra's only clash with the press - she is also reported to have taken on a male reporter who described menstruation as "a problem" and another who quizzed her on her weight - and some have dubbed her as Bollywood's Angry Young Girl.
That title is an echo of a name given to Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan who was dubbed India's "angry young man" many years ago for challenging the patriarchal hierarchy in his on-screen roles in Bollywood hits like Deewar and Zanjeer.
It is nothing new that actresses and celebrities around the world are regularly portrayed as mere body parts that need to live up to certain standards, with frequent commentary on the tightness of their abs and endless aspects of their grooming.
Sections of the media have long seen celebrities as fair game with regular reports about Britney Spears piling on the pounds, Lindsay Lohan has variously been described as fat and frumpy or superskinny, for example.
Sometimes the celebrity in question will lash out on Twitter, libellous material will attract lawsuits and at other times the celebrity will simply ignore the coverage, but we rarely hear about the stand-up rows between the media and celebrities that have been seen in India.
So why is Bollywood protesting now, and with such intensity?
In recent years, the spotlight has been on how India treats its women and the country's patriarchal system.
The brutal gang-rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student on a bus in Delhi in December 2012 was a game-changer in a society where women are often treated as second-class citizens and have long been exploited.
That has led to far more coverage of the treatment of women in India's booming media and social media.
And when the media is accused of propagating the patriarchy there is far more intense scrutiny.
"The way actresses and celebrities are portrayed in the media is completely horrendous," says woman's rights activist Kavita Krishnan.
"There is always emphasis on their 'sexiness', their body, but Deepika Padukone is not just her cleavage."
Ms Krishnan says The Times of India inviting the viewers to "come and stare at her boobs" is an "open invitation to harassment".
After Padukone lashed out at the Times and hundreds of tweets criticised it for being sexist and voyeuristic, the daily removed the report from its site and urged the actress to "consider it a compliment".
This defence, critics said, was worse than the original offence.
"This is sex harassment being passed off as a compliment," Ms Krishnan said. "This is exactly what men on the street say, if you object to their behaviour, they say it's a compliment.
"This is what louts do. How can a national newspaper do this?"
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The Prince of Wales has requested a new pub in the Duchy of Cornwall's village of Poundbury to be named after his wife. | The Duchess of Cornwall Inn, due to open in early 2016, is a joint development by the Duchy of Cornwall and brewer Hall & Woodhouse.
The village, on Dorchester's outskirts, has been built according to the architectural ideas of Prince Charles.
Launched in 1993, it is now home to 2,500 people and 170 businesses.
The inn, being built in Queen Mother Square, will have 20 rooms. Prince Charles made the name suggestion to the brewery.
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A globe-trotting gecko "hitched a lift" with an unsuspecting holidaymaker, flying 5,500 miles with her back from Sri Lanka to Chester. | The woman, who has not been named, found the reptile while unpacking her suitcase on Tuesday, the RSPCA said.
She managed to put the gecko in a sandwich box - complete with air holes - before calling the charity.
Holidaymakers have been reminded to always check their cases before heading home to avoid "surprising stowaways".
RSPCA inspector Leanne Cragg said: "The gecko appears to be unscathed by his long and adventurous journey and is actually pretty lively."
The reptile has now been taken in by a specialist keeper since it is unlikely that the gecko would survive the British winter for long.
It is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to release geckos, or to allow them to escape into the wild.
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US President Donald Trump said "we'll see" when asked if he was going to attack North Korea after the secretive state claimed to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. So what could military action against Kim Jong-un's regime actually look like? | By Justin BronkRUSI
Pyongyang has defied UN sanctions and international pressure to develop nuclear weapons and test missiles that could potentially reach the US.
South Korea, Japan, China and Russia are among those to voice strong criticism against the country's nuclear tests.
And when North Korea fired a missile over Japan's Hokkaido region, sending residents running for cover, President Trump said "all options are on the table".
But while the US has unrivalled military strength, the range of options it actually has against the hermit country are limited.
Option 1: 'Enhanced containment'
This is the least risky but arguably least effective option available since it would simply build on deployments that have long been in place and have had little success in deterring North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programme.
The US could move additional ground forces into South Korea, including ground-based missile defences, such as the controversial Thaad system, heavy artillery and armoured vehicles, to demonstrate its willingness to use force to back up its demands.
However, South Korea temporarily halted the current Thaad deployment and is strongly against any increases in US ground forces, because of concerns about provoking the North.
Indeed, North Korea would almost certainly interpret such moves as a prelude to a ground invasion, given its reactions to annual joint exercises between the US and South Korean militaries.
China and Russia would no doubt strenuously object too, and both have the power to make life difficult for the US in other areas such as Eastern Europe and the South and East China Seas.
The US Navy could increase its presence around Korea, sending more cruisers and destroyers able to shoot down ballistic missiles and, possibly, deploying a second carrier strike group.
Alongside the naval options, the US Air Force could bolster its forward-based airpower, with more attack fighter squadrons, support tankers, surveillance aircraft and heavy bombers at bases in Guam, South Korea and Japan.
However, the US Navy and US Air Force are both extremely heavily tasked around the world and are feeling the strain of well over a decade of continuous high-intensity deployments in support of operations, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
More importantly, perhaps, time is on North Korea's side, since an enhanced US military presence would not itself force a halt to its rapidly maturing nuclear weapons programme and ballistic missile testing.
And any statement of intent to shoot down North Korean ballistic missiles that travel outside the country's airspace would itself require a major increase in US Navy presence around the peninsula.
North Korea has a large ballistic missile arsenal, and US interceptor missiles are extremely expensive and available in limited quantities aboard each ship.
It would, therefore, be possible for the North to overwhelm and deplete the US Navy's stocks, leaving them vulnerable and forced to return to port.
Such a policy would therefore represent an extremely expensive and probably unsustainable challenge to North Korea, as well as a dangerous escalation towards direct military conflict.
Option 2: Surgical strikes
The US Air Force and US Navy possess the most advanced surgical strike capabilities on Earth.
Using volleys of precision Tomahawk missiles fired from submarines off the North Korean coastline and attacks by B-2 stealth bombers against key North Korean nuclear sites and ballistic missile facilities may seem like an attractive proposition, at first glance.
It is undoubtedly the case that heavy damage could be inflicted on high-value targets, with deeply buried and hardened underground facilities vulnerable to the 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb.
The immediate danger to US aircraft would depend on many factors, including the amount of warning North Korea received, the number of strikes flown and the contribution of non-stealth aircraft within range of its defences.
However, the state of North Korea's air defence network is very hard to determine since it is a mix of Soviet/Russian, Chinese and home-grown surface-to-air missile and radar systems acquired over 50 years.
The defences are among the densest on Earth, but they have been modified and upgraded to an unknown degree and their readiness is difficult to assess.
If the US lost aircraft to enemy fire or accidents, it would then face the nightmare scenario of having to try to rescue its aircrew, or abandon them to a very public fate.
Far more significant, however, is the fact that even successful strikes on nuclear and missile sites, command centres and even the leadership itself, would not stop North Korea retaliating.
The People's Army would still have the ability to inflict almost inevitably devastating damage in immediate retaliation against South Korea - a key US ally.
It consists of more than a million regular soldiers and, by some estimates, more than six million reserves and paramilitary troops.
A huge number of conventional and rocket artillery pieces, mostly dug in near the demilitarised zone, include hundreds that are within range of parts of the South Korean capital city Seoul, which is home to around 10 million people.
Even the US military would take days to fully eliminate just these artillery batteries, which would be able to fire tens of thousands of shells and rockets during that time.
The catastrophic damage that these batteries would inflict on a crowded modern city, as well as the South Korean military forces, is why the South Korean government is opposed to any pre-emptive military action against North Korea.
Even without a usable nuclear weapon and without actively invading South Korea, the Kim regime could inflict devastating damage and probably end the US-South Korean alliance as we know it.
Option 3: Full-scale invasion
Given the sheer size of the People's Army, the power of its artillery, its dense air defences and South Korea's reluctance to support any US military action, this option is extremely far-fetched.
Any attempt to actually invade North Korea would require months of visible US military build-up, full-scale South Korean participation and a way to guarantee the neutralisation of North Korea's mysterious nuclear capabilities.
It would also cost hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides.
North Korea's missile programme:
Have North Korea's missile tests paid off?
In addition to heavy artillery bombardments, the People's Army has long trained for large-scale commando infiltration into South Korea, using low, slow-flying biplanes which are hard to detect on radar, small boats and midget submarines.
These would add to the chaos and loss of life in the event of any large-scale conflict, and ensure that the comparatively fewer, albeit much higher-technology US and South Korean forces would be stretched painfully thin.
The last time the US and its allies advanced into North Korea, during the Korean War in 1950, China entered the war on the side of the North to prevent the establishment of a unified Western-aligned Korea on its land border.
Such a development is still something that China is not prepared to contemplate - the main reason it has propped up the Kim regime for so long.
Finally, even if somehow these huge problems could be overcome, a successful invasion of North Korea led by the US would leave it responsible for rebuilding a shattered country.
North Korea has existed in an unparalleled state of psychological manipulation, chronic economic hardship and isolation for over 60 years.
The monumental task of reintegrating East Germany after the Cold War pales in comparison.
The reality is that none of the military options available to the US for dealing with North Korea come without high costs and significant risks - considerations that it will have to weigh up against uncertain and problematic potential outcomes.
About this piece
This analysis piece was commissioned by the BBC from an expert working for an outside organisation.
Justin Bronk is a Research Fellow specialising in combat airpower and technology at The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Follow him @Justin_Br0nk.
RUSI describes itself as an independent think tank engaged in defence and security research.
Edited by Duncan Walker
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I've been reporting on the European migration crisis during the past year. In previous blogs I offered some initial impressions (see here and here ). It's clear now, though, that the story has entered a new phase.
| Mark UrbanDiplomatic and defence editor, Newsnight
For now, the 'migrant crisis' in northern Europe is over
That doesn't mean there aren't people suffering nor that millions have stopped wanting to head up from Africa and the Middle East. What it does mean is that the stunning flow of more than one million people through the eastern Mediterranean, northwards via the Balkans to EU countries that we saw last year has been stopped.
Even as late as January this year, the numbers looked set to exceed last year's total with 3,500 to 4,000 asylum seekers a day still arriving in Germany. But figures obtained by the BBC show that in April a daily average of only 183 made it (giving a total for the whole month of 5,485, less than one day's arrivals back in September).
Filming at the station in the Bavarian town of Rosenheim in January, we were told that 800-1,200 migrants were arriving every day on trains from Austria.
Last week, a federal police spokesman in Rosenheim told us that the daily average is now only 80, almost all of whom have come via the "Brenner route", meaning Austria's border with Italy. Even this, though, is now being sealed by the Austrian government, amid scenes of protest at the weekend.
Other countries that took large numbers of asylum seekers last year - from Hungary to Austria, the Netherlands or Sweden - all report similarly dramatic reductions.
International co-operation works - and so do fences
There have been two major elements to the effort against illegal immigration. The first is the European Union's deal with Turkey. In return for billions of euros, a promise of visa-free travel and a new legitimate scheme for resettling people who have fled Syria, Turkey agreed to clamp down on the people smugglers as well as accepting migrants caught and deported from Greece.
The deal with Turkey has been controversial, not least because many Europeans feel it conceded too much. It is also fragile. Last week Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to scrap the whole arrangement because of a dispute with the EU over his country's tough anti-terror laws.
Turkey's deal with the EU has had a dramatic effect, but it hasn't been 100% effective. Last week, for example, 537 migrants arrived in Greece from Turkey.
Efforts to prevent people going further north have, however, been completely successful - or as near to that as matters. And this brings us to the sealing off with razor-wire fences of the Greek-Macedonian frontier as well as successive border crossing points on the migrant route through the Balkans.
Filming at the transit centre at Sentilj in Slovenia, close to the Austrian border, in mid-April, relief workers told me that not a single person had arrived since Macedonia closed its border with Greece in early March. The camp, which at its peak processed 4,000 people in a day, is now being gradually dismantled.
The action between a group of Balkan states, co-ordinated by Austria, to close off these routes faces its own uncertainties - not least that the Macedonian government is tottering in the face of a domestic political crisis.
But the conclusion that many have drawn - particularly nationalist politicians in Austria and Hungary - is that fences work and could be used to protect Europe's borders even if President Erdogan reneged on his deal with the EU.
Southern Europe remains exposed
Many predicted that closing down the Greek route would drive many to cross the Mediterranean from Libya. In truth though it's not that simple, because of the risks, both in the sea crossing and from brutal Libyan militias.
In 2016 so far, around 29,000 have arrived in Italy and they continue to do so at the rate of roughly 1,500 a week - that's about one-fifth to one-sixth of the traffic that was going via Greece before the EU-Turkey deal came into effect.
Just as last summer's mass migration prompted the sealing off of Greece by its northern neighbours so this is happening now with Italy, led once more by Austria but with Switzerland and France also restricting freedoms previously granted by the Schengen agreement.
The danger for both Greece and Italy is that their European "partners" fail to honour pledges to resettle those given asylum, seal off their countries and that arrivals across the Mediterranean continue. With more than 50,000 already stranded in Greece, this scenario is already very real to them.
The underlying causes remain
Last week, the International Institute for Strategic Studies reported that the number of people displaced by armed conflict (mainly in the Middle East and Africa) had increased by 40% since 2013.
Add to that an often desperate search for opportunity. Most of those coming across the Italian route are not Syrian or Iraqi but from Nigeria, The Gambia, Senegal and Guinea.
Among Syrian and Iraqi asylum seekers, one phrase commonly heard on the migration route north was "Europe invited us" or "Merkel invited us".
How far the marked change of attitude in Europe changes this feeling we will soon see. But a growing sense of the difficulties of making the journey, as well as of the hardships that could await, may well reduce Europe's pull factor, particularly for those coming from the Middle East.
Fortress Europe is here to stay
The shutting down of the Balkan migration route may well have saved Angela Merkel's chancellorship. Success will lead many to doubt the formula that mass migration into Europe is just a part of globalism that cannot be resisted, not least because anti-immigration politics is surging across the continent.
Such is the desire of European politicians to "regain control over the EU's external borders", to use Mrs Merkel's favoured phrase, that they will make extraordinary bargains with Turkey or indeed Libyan militias.
And while many have commented that President Erdogan now has a pressure point he can use against the EU at will, that also gives him an interest in the deal's continued survival.
What the last few months have shown us is that many governments (notably in central and eastern Europe) are far more interested in preventing illegal migration than they are in living up to refugee quotas. Some have also made clear that they are prepared to use their armed forces to protect their borders if they have to.
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Flamboyant New York pop group Scissor Sisters, famous for songs like Take Your Mama Out and Laura, are about to release their fourth album, Magic Hour. But, they tell the BBC, they're worried that some of the songs will never be heard. | "I just did The Voice with my fly unzipped!"
Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears is reliving the moment when, at the end of the band's performance on BBC One, he "looked down and noticed my trousers were wide open".
It was the one misstep in a week that saw the band's latest single, Only the Horses, enter the Top 10 and a fan propose to his girlfriend during the first of two sold-out shows at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire.
"We had no expectations for this campaign, so I'm thrilled," Shears says.
The singer is also looking forward to playing the Tower of London as part of the London 2012 Festival in July.
"I'd love to appear as a corpse, with my head tucked under my arm," says Shears. "But Lady Gaga's probably done that already."
The band are clearly in high spirits as Shears and his band-mate Baby Daddy (Scott Hoffman) discuss their place in pop, getting advice from their parents and the fear that no one listens to their album tracks.
Your last album, Night Work, felt like a recalibration of the Scissor Sisters sound. How did you approach recording Magic Hour?
Jake: A year ago, I went into production on my musical [an adaptation of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City] and I was exhausted. I was thinking, "How the hell are we going to make another album?"
My strategy was not to worry about it and go into the studio and have fun, and not care so much.
Yet there's a thread of melancholy running through some of the new songs.
Jake: It's always been there, in songs like Mary or Return to Oz. I'd say there's a wistfulness to this album. Even the moody songs have a very uplifting aspect.
Baby Daddy: What I've noticed from our interviews for this album is that it's a complete Rorschach test. Everyone is telling me a different interpretation. The interview before you said: "This album is so much fun."
Jake: One of the worst reviews we ever got was for our first album. It was one star. But I loved what they said about it. They said: "It's a confusing board game of an album." I was so happy with that. I hope this record is a confusing board game of an album.
Where did the title come from?
Jake: Do you know what? This album was almost called Scissor Sisters 4. We literally changed the title 20 minutes before. We had no clue.
Baby Daddy: It kind of came from Jake's mom, actually.
Jake: It did! My mom was with me down in my house in Tennessee. I was really frustrated, so she took two of my friends, went in her car, had the CD on and took a pen. They went through the whole album and wrote down any possible title.
Baby Daddy: Then there was one of those conversations with me and Jake on the phone and he's constantly breaking off, "Hey mom, what do you think of this one? Help us out here!" Every two minutes, feedback from Freda.
Towards the end of the album there's a really moving ballad called The Secret Life of Letters. Who was that written for?
Jake: That was actually written for myself! It's about writer's block. It can be torturous and awful if you end up with nothing to say.
If you listen to the lyrics, for instance, there's one that says: "I feel like passing this phrase", because I didn't even know what the next line could be. So that's what that song is about: Where have the words gone?
Baby Daddy: And that's probably why it's so emotional. It's something that's really affected him.
Jake: It's terrifying.
Best in Me is has the lyric: "You may not hear this on MTV/No big deal. Fine by me." Is that a bit of a dig?
Jake: It's just the truth.
Baby Daddy: We're not played on MTV, at least in America.
Jake: But as the lyric says, it doesn't matter so much to me any more. I'm happy.
Baby Daddy: We understand our place.
Jake: I think we've put our own notch in the wall. We occupy our own space, which was always the goal. I don't think, at this point, anyone can really penetrate it.
The accepted wisdom is that Night Work wasn't as successful as you had hoped. But the album seems to be a favourite with a lot of Scissor Sisters' fans.
Jake: I hear that all the time. It just depends on what you measure success by.
Baby Daddy: Night Work came out at a time when sales figures dropped through the floor, for everyone.
Jake: The music industry is collapsing all around us.
So if you can't sell millions of albums, how do you make a living?
Jake: It's something everyone is trying to figure out. Your songs hopefully get played somewhere, whether it's radio, or you get put on a TV show, or you're touring.
Baby Daddy: People are more open to sponsorships as well.
Jake: There's no such thing as selling out any more. Anybody will do anything. There are things that we would never have considered before.
Will you go play on a talent show on TV? Absolutely not. Whereas now you're like, "Oh my god, thank you."
How do you think this album will sell?
Jake: I keep wondering whether people even listen to albums any more. Certainly not as much.
Putting out an album feels a little bit like you're wasting songs. The interesting thing about this campaign is we put out Shady Love just to surprise people. Didn't tell anyone we were going to do it. Threw it up on the internet. And then we've eked out songs. Every few weeks there's something new.
I'm really happy doing it that way because it presents the album as a whole. To give people the idea that we're not just coming out with this single that's going to be driven down your throat. I almost wish I could do it with the whole record.
Baby Daddy: This is terrible, but we're doing an album signing in HMV and we actually said, "This will be the last physical album signing we'll ever do."
Magic Hour is released by Polydor on 28 May. Scissor Sisters were talking to BBC entertainment reporter Mark Savage.
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When former Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson revealed he would be making a new show on Amazon Prime after being dropped by the BBC, his successor, Chris Evans, must have felt a little nervous. | By Daniel ThomasBusiness reporter
Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services such as Amazon's have sent shockwaves through the broadcast world, as they gain millions of new viewers each year and produce ever more of their own award-winning content.
Netflix, the market leader, is now in over 15% of British homes, while Amazon's market share is about 5%.
And new technologies that let us watch what we want on whatever device we want are transforming traditional television viewing habits.
'Big advantages'
According to UK regulator Ofcom, household subscriptions to the top SVOD services - Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky Now - shot up from 4.2 million to six million in the 12 months to March.
Forecasts from Mintel suggest that UK streaming video subscription revenues will rocket from £437m to £1.17bn between 2014 and 2019 as users more than double.
Subscription video-on-demand
Global subscribers
199m
estimated households by 2020
65m Netflix
40m Amazon Prime
9m Hulu
750,000 Sky Now TV
For the broadcasters, this comes at a time when the number of people who own a TV set is falling in the UK and the long-term viability of the licence fee is in question.
Research from media consultancy SNL Kagan has also found that in the US, take-up of cable, satellite and other pay-TV services is falling fast as lower-cost SVODs undercut them.
Mark Mulligan, an analyst at media consultancy Midia, says that Netflix and Amazon have big advantages over broadcasters in their ability to target programmes at specific audiences and lavish budgets "measured in the billions" on their productions.
"A traditional cable company has to worry about filling entire programming schedules of a vast selection of channels - SVOD companies have no schedules at all," he says.
"So they can afford to be highly selective about what they want to commission and then pay over the odds to get it."
Last year, director of BBC television, Danny Cohen, admitted the corporation had been "blown out of the water" when bidding against Netflix in one deal.
And Mr Clarkson's new driving show on Amazon Prime - with its global subscriber base of 40 million - is reported to have a budget of about £160m for just three seasons.
No wonder Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently admitted that the show will be "very, very, very expensive".
Connected home
The difficulty for SVOD services in the past was that you could only watch the programmes on a laptop or desktop, which meant they weren't ideal for collective family viewing.
Now internet-enabled smart TVs are bridging the gap, and new technologies, such as Amazon's Fire Stick and Google's Chromecast, are enabling viewers to beam content wirelessly from any connected device to their TV sets with relative ease.
Many cable TV services, such as Virgin's Tivo, also offer Netflix as part of their packages, again widening access.
But SVOD's Achilles heel is currently internet bandwidth - or lack of it.
Average download speeds in the UK are still around 23 megabits per second (Mbps), so viewing SVOD on more than one device at the same time can lead to jerky, stuttering pictures, says Michael Underhill, an analyst at media consultancy Enders.
When you think about all the connected devices in the average home fighting for a share of bandwidth, ultrafast wi-fi connections - 100Mbps and above - are likely to be needed for SVOD to continue its rapid growth.
'Impressive headlines'
And it's important to put SVOD growth numbers in context.
Such services accounted for about 3% of total UK viewing in 2014, while around 90% went to live, recorded and on-demand television - the domains of the traditional broadcasters and cable channels.
"For all the impressive headlines that companies like Netflix and Amazon generate, they are still only used by a minority of the population," says Enders' Mr Underhill.
"While Netflix dramas like House of Cards generate a lot of attention, the majority of viewing on these platforms goes to existing broadcast content," he adds.
"So the content that people like the BBC and ITV have funded and created has gone some way to making Netflix as popular as it is."
For now, SVOD platforms are mostly a "complementary" form of viewing, says Ofcom, used primarily to access films and US TV shows.
They also face fierce competition from mainstream and cable channels, which are themselves offering new digital services, not to mention from recorded TV and free video-on-demand services like YouTube.
"SVOD is just one reflection of an overall media landscape that's in the midst of fundamental change," says Phil Stokes, a media expert at PwC.
"In part, the traditional broadcasters are capitalising on changing viewing habits and the opportunities from technology by launching their own time-shifted catch-up channels, families of channels, mobile apps and video platforms."
Trump card
Another point Mr Underhill makes is that services like Netflix have largely produced dramas which, despite critical acclaim, do not attract the mega audiences of shows like Downton Abbey or Strictly Come Dancing.
"Platforms like Netflix have shown no interest in commissioning shows like the X-Factor or The Only Way is Essex or Springwatch, or indeed live sport or news," he says.
"In these areas TV broadcasting companies are producing the bulk of content and accounting for a large share of audiences."
"Whereas Top Gear will likely reinvent itself after a few years without Clarkson, it is much less likely that Clarkson's brand will be as robust after a few years hidden behind the online pay walls of an SVOD service," believes Midia's Mark Mulligan.
While Chris Evans may not need to be too worried just yet, PwC's Phil Stokes warns that broadcasters cannot afford to be complacent.
"They must innovate constantly," he says.
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The UK has voted to leave the European Union, despite Scotland voting by 62% to 38% in favour of Remain.
BBC Scotland took to the streets of towns and cities across the country to find out what people feel about the decision to leave the EU.
| 'Shock' in Scotland's most pro-Remain city
The people of Edinburgh delivered the strongest Remain vote in Scotland - and a quick tour of the capital's streets found people "shocked" and "devastated" by the decision to leave the EU.
While the UK voted for Brexit, 74.4% of those who cast their ballots in the Scottish capital were in favour of remaining.
Driving through the capital, making stops along the way to talk to people, there were no visible signs in the streets or in gardens of how people felt about the vote.
There were no flags, banners or groups of kilted men as there had been in the hours after the Scottish referendum result in 2014.
However, everyone wanted to talk about the referendum result.
Angie Brown reports from Edinburgh
Remain voters 'dazed' in Glasgow
In Glasgow city centre, there is very little small talk.
Commuters, although walking briskly, seem to be moving with more hesitation than usual as they head to jobs in chain stores and offices.
Many are talking intently into their mobile phones - about Jeremy Corbyn, the economy, and about the possibility of another independence referendum.
Remain voters in Scotland's largest city seem dazed, while those who voted Leave are calm and optimistic.
Despite US presidential hopeful Donald Trump's Twitter claim that "the place is going wild over the vote", the atmosphere is subdued.
Katherine Sutherland reports from Glasgow
Dundee: 'It's a scary day'
A swirl of European accents fills the air outside the Caird Hall as Dundee University graduands get ready for their big day.
But among the selfies, smiles and proud-as-punch parents, there's an air of uncertainty as these European citizens prepare for the working world.
Vladislavs Ignatjevs, from Latvia, imagined he would begin his career in Dundee, but the 23-year-old is now not so sure.
"I'm upset with the result," he said. "It will be harder for younger people to come to the UK and get the high level of education."
Graeme Ogston reports from Dundee
Aberdeen: 'Things will get bad then improve'
"That's made my life."
That was the most enthusiastic reaction when I took to the streets of Aberdeen to find out how people felt about the UK voting to leave the EU.
Perhaps it was the rush to get to work or university, perhaps it was shock at the result, perhaps it was just the thick pea soup fog, but many people were reluctant to speak.
While the UK voted to leave, Aberdeen voters were 61.1% in favour of remaining.
Some people did not even know the overall result when I approached them.
Ken Banks reports from Aberdeen
'Doomed' or delighted in Dumfries
Sitting on the steps outside the historic Midsteeple in Dumfries, Stephen Comiskey was taking in the outcome of the EU referendum.
He chose the words of a famous Doonhamer, John Laurie of Dad's Army fame, to sum up his feelings on the result.
"I just think that we're doomed," he told me.
"I think it is going to be pretty bad for the UK as a whole."
Not everyone, of course, shared that view - in a region where the result was one of the closest in Scotland.
Giancarlo Rinaldi reports from Dumfries
Questions remain in the Highlands
Two years ago, during the Scottish independence referendum, Inverness High Street was very quickly festooned with Yes signs.
This time the campaign notices were slow to appear and, at first, with a notable absence of those backing Remain.
As the final results show, however, that the city and wider Highlands and Islands favoured staying in the EU - 56% of those who voted in the Highlands were for Remain, while the figure was 55% in the Western Isles.
In 1975, when voters last gave their verdict on European membership, the Western Isles returned a decisive "no".
Steven McKenzie reports from Inverness
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Ubisoft has apologised for giving fictional terrorists the symbol of the raised fist, associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, in its new mobile game, Tom Clancy: Elite Squad. | The company faced a backlash after the video game's trailer was released.
Players have to kill members of the fictional group, Umbra, which fuels civil unrest with acts of terrorism.
Ubisoft said showing the fist symbol at an Umbra meeting in an opening sequence had been "insensitive and harmful".
'Extremely disrespectful'
"We have listened to and appreciate the players and the broader community who have pointed it out and we apologise," the games giant said.
The image would be removed from the Android version of the game on Tuesday and from the iPhone version "as soon as possible", it added.
A senior Ubisoft programmer had tweeted the trailer was "gross and extremely disrespectful".
And another Ubisoft employee, who worked on the game, said Umbra was supposed to be "a James-Bond-villain organisation" and the image was "irresponsible".
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This May marks 40 years since the late singer/songwriter Marvin Gaye released the groundbreaking album What's Going On. It changed the sound and subject matter of soul music and has influenced and inspired musicians since. The BBC World Service marks the event. | By 1970 Marvin Gaye had released 10 albums, all produced under the protective and watchful eye of Motown founder Berry Gordy.
"Marvin's first recordings were jazz songs," says Motown legend Smokey Robinson, a close friend of Gaye. "But he was very keen to be taken seriously as a crooner, similar to Frank Sinatra. Nat King Cole was his singing idol."
But none of Gaye's torch songs were successful and in 1962 A&R director at Motown, Mickey Stevenson persuaded him to record some R&B songs.
Speaking to the BBC in 1976, Gaye said of those years: "I don't view them with a lot of happiness. Being young and not knowing the business a great deal and trying to figure it out."
In 1965 he moved into a more sophisticated soul style epitomised by the song How Sweet It Is.
To capitalise on his image as a ladies' man, Barry Gordy teamed Gaye up with one of the Motown's leading female vocalists Tammi Terell.
They scored a series of hits until their success was tragically cut short.
While they were performing in 1967 Terell collapsed on stage, the first evidence of a brain tumour that killed her in 1970.
Terell's collapse and subsequent illness spooked Gaye and he refused to perform again.
'Very sincere'
After her death he withdrew into a depression.
His mood was compounded by other personal problems - his marriage was crumbling and he was having continual arguments with Motown over the material they wanted him to record.
His brother Frankie, had returned from a three-year tour of duty in Vietnam and Gaye was inflamed by the tales of social injustice he told.
Before drawing into a self-imposed seclusion for a year he recorded the song Abraham, Martin & John.
"I was very sincere when I recorded that song," he told the BBC. "It may very well have been responsible for the What's Going On album."
While it seemed that Gaye had turned his back on recording, the genesis of What's Going On was happening in other quarters.
The idea for the original song came from Ronald "Obie" Benson of the vocal quartet, the Four Tops.
While on tour in San Francisco he witnessed a violent street conflict where police were beating up peace protesters.
He started writing the song with Al Cleveland and though the Four Tops weren't interested, he knew its sentiment would appeal to Gaye.
Creating a vibe
In the meantime while turning his back on music, Gaye had decided to try out for the Detroit Lions football team. He failed trials but made some lasting friends.
When Benson and Al Cleveland dropped round to pitch the song to him he was sitting around the piano working on an idea with two of the players who would later appear on the track.
"Football players are very good at talking it up and getting a conversation going," Gaye later said in an interview. "You just have to hold down the profanity."
The crew that would create the legendary song was nearly assembled.
Gaye still had no intention of going into the recording studio but Benson and Cleveland managed to convince him to record.
He brought in the Funk Brothers to avoid anything that was too similar to the Motown beat.
Bass player Bob Babbitt described the atmosphere in the studio like nothing he had experienced before: "I remember walking in there and just feeling at home."
This was an integral part of the vibe that Gaye was trying to create.
Motown producer Lamont Dozier was also there: "All the noise, the laugh and chatter in the background, that was all part of the scene," he says.
"Marvin was just sitting off to the side watching all this stuff wondering if people really realised what was going on in this world."
'Divine project'
The album contained songs not just about Frankie Gaye's experience of war but also about drug addiction, child abuse, spirituality and social injustice.
It was one of the first albums to truly speak out about social ills.
"I was incensed so I wrote and produced," said Gaye. "I wanted to write an album that could be translated into other languages and not particularly be an ethnic statement, that could translate into other conditions.
"It was a very divine project."
Motown's Berry Gordy hated it and refused to release the album. He felt this new political Gaye was too far from the sex symbol he had created.
But when Gaye refused to record anything else, the single What's Going On was released. Soon after its huge success the album followed.
What's Going On was significantly different to anything that had gone before and captured a unique social zeitgeist.
"There are some pieces of music that are timeless, they were created from another universe," says Mary Wilson of The Supremes. "He was able to capture his thoughts with what was going on in the world."
This was a concept album, not just a bunch of singles. Lamont Dozier describes it as "almost a constant chant that keeps pounding into your head".
"It gets you to understand that there has to be change in this world and we can only do it ourselves by coming together as a people."
For Dozier, the legacy of this album is profound.
"To know where you are going as an artist you have to listen to Marvin," he says.
"As long as people want to play music they are going to listen to Marvin Gaye. It's an iconic album and it's going to be around forever."
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A signalling failure between train stations has caused disruption and delays to some rail services in Wales. | The fault happened between stations in Machynlleth and Pwllheli, in Gwynedd, and Aberystwyth.
Services between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth were also cancelled today.
National Rail said the lines have now been reopened although trains may still be delayed or cancelled as services return to normal.
It added there would be a limited bus service running between Shrewsbury and Aberystwyth, and between Machynlleth and Pwllheli.
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A month after the coup in Mali, the military leaders remain firmly committed to the fight against jihadists, but until there is a deal on restoring democracy the position looks fragile, writes West Africa analyst Paul Melly. | The final shape of Mali's promised transition to new elections is yet to be settled several weeks after soldiers seized power in Bamako, forcing President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta to resign, although former Defence Minister Ban Ndaw has been named as interim leader.
The junta hope this will satisfy fellow members of the Ecowas bloc of West African countries to accept its plan, after weekend talks to reassure opposition sceptics.
But from the outset, the putchists sent a clear message to the international partners who have thousands of troops deployed to tackle the decade-old security crisis that sees northern Mali continuing to suffer jihadist attacks while central areas are scarred by inter-communal tensions and violence.
Colonel Major Ismaël Wagué, spokesman for the junta - the self-proclaimed National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) - insisted that the UN peacekeeping force in Mali, the French anti-terrorist force, troops from allied Sahelian countries and a new European special forces operation were all "partners in the restoration of stability".
Over the past year or so there had been signs that some Malians were increasingly resentful of the French military presence, despite their role as vital allies for the over-stretched and sometimes beleaguered national forces.
But Col Maj Wagué scrupulously refrained from indulging simplistic nationalistic sentiment.
He made it clear that Mali's new military masters were keen to continue working closely with the international forces - just as they were hoping to secure Ecowas agreement to their plans for the political road ahead.
More on the coup:
Although a final deal with the regional bloc on transition terms is proving elusive, the jihadist threat remains.
So the military campaign in the north continues - and it remains a pretty high-risk exercise: two more French soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb near the Saharan town of Taoudenni on 5 September, just the latest in a conflict that has claimed 45 French lives and many more Malian and UN casualties since 2011.
Heavy defeats for Mali's military
While many troops have been killed in small incidents, there have also been major attacks in which dozens have died, usually when outlying Mali army garrisons are overrun.
The first such incident - the "Aguelhok massacre" of January 2012, when jihadist and Tuareg separatist militants executed around 100 captives after seizing a remote desert base - helped to fuel the discontent among rank and file troops that culminated in a mutiny and military coup in March of that year.
More than seven years later, and despite a long-running European Union programme to retrain the military and rebuild both their morale and their technical military skills, the army was still suffering occasional heavy defeats.
Militancy in Mali:
This time particularly at the hands of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), which claims allegiance to the Middle Eastern group.
Last year, on 30 September and 1 October, up to 85 soldiers died when ISGS overran their base at Boulikessi on the Burkina Faso border.
Then on 1 November 2019, another 49 were killed in an ISGS assault on a base at Indélimane, near the border with Niger in the far east of the country.
Weaknesses in training and shortages of equipment contributed in part to such disasters.
But there was also widespread frustration with the inconsistency of political leadership from ex-President Keïta in Bamako and a sense that too few members of the governing class were really focused on fully implementing the 2015 peace deal with northern Tuareg separatists.
Procrastination over demobilising separatist fighters and devolving power and money to the regional level has fuelled a mood of disillusion in which terrorism can persist.
Exasperation at this state of affairs seems to have been a major factor behind the 18 August military coup - whose leaders included several officers with experience of the difficult conditions faced by the military in the north.
In the very short term, Malian forces can continue their campaign in alliance with their key international partners - the French force Barkhane, troops from fellow members of the G5 Sahel states (Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad), the new European special forces deployment Takuba and of course the UN force Minusma.
The latter's main task is to maintain stability rather than actively chase jihadist groups - but this has not prevented it securing the dubious distinction of being the world's most dangerous UN peacekeeping operation, having lost at least 220 troops since it was first deployed in 2013.
Tapping into local grievances
But the complex challenge facing all these forces, local and national, is that the restoration of stability in the north and centre of Mali depends on a lot more than simply hunting down groups of militants.
Barkhane in particular has pulled off a series of strikes against jihadist of various allegiances, and killed a number of well-known commanders, including Abdelmalek Droukdel, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, intercepted on 3 June this year just after he had slipped into Mali from northern Algeria.
But such strikes have not prevented jihadist violence persisting right across the north, from the Niger River inland delta near Mauritania to the Sahelian scrub of the far eastern border with Niger.
Behind the 2015 Tuareg peace deal
And although a few of the commanders - such as the Western Saharan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi of ISGS - are outsiders, many are Malians.
These include Amadou Koufa, the preacher who heads the Macina Liberation Front recruiting mainly among Peul livestock herders, or the onetime Tuareg separatist Iyad Ag Ghaly, who leads Ansar Dine and a wider coalition of militant groups, Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM).
Moreover, the militants increasingly tap into local community grievances, over access to grazing or government funding, for example, or anger at abuses by heavy-handed soldiers.
Crucial international aid
Force alone will not resolve the problem.
Development and better governance matter, particularly in areas where a threadbare state has ceased to provide even the most basic public service functions.
Of course, security still has to be part of the picture, because without it essential services such as justice, education or community health cannot be delivered by officials safe from intimidation or worse.
But real progress does require legitimate and internationally recognised political leadership and a viable peace process that retains the buy-in of the 2015 peace treaty signatories.
And that is why the protracted negotiations in Bamako and the bargaining over a transition settlement that Ecowas will support - thus freeing Mali from sanctions and opening the door to restored international aid - remain so crucial.
For all that the CNSP junta wants to maintain military co-operation with international forces, security without a political deal would probably be unachievable.
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Philip Hammond did not give the "indexation allowance freeze" a lot of welly in his speech and certainly didn't try very hard to explain its rather economicky sounding title but it's a tax rise the government hopes will raise half a billion pounds a year by the end of this parliament and could have important consequences - particularly for the buy-to-let market. | Simon JackBusiness editor@BBCSimonJackon Twitter
The way it works is this: Individuals who buy assets, like second properties, and then see them rise in value have to pay 28% of the full rise in the price when they come to sell it.
Companies, on the other hand, have been allowed to deduct the amount of that price rise that was due to inflation.
For example, if I was to buy a rental flat for £100k and sell it for £200k 10 years later I would have to pay £28,000 capital gains tax.
If Simon Jack Property Limited was to buy the same flat and inflation had been at 3% for that 10-year period, inflation would have accounted for £34,000 of that price rise and I would only have to pay 28% on the remaining £66,000 price rise.
Simon Jack Property Limited pays tax of £18,480 rather than £28,000.
Disliking landlords
From January of next year that discrepancy will be eliminated. The change will only affect price rises from January of next year, so companies will not pay extra on the gains they have already made.
Property is not the only asset this new tax hike affects, but it is in its sweetspot and is further evidence that the government seems to have taken a dislike to buy-to-let landlords.
Last April, buy-to-let landlords were hit with a 3% surcharge on stamp duty which would have left some thinking the sums no longer added up - acting as a deterrent to buy to letters hoovering up properties.
Treasury sources tell me that it's not that they have it in for buy-to-let landlords but there have been tax advantages for buy-to-let landlords compared with regular buyers.
They want to make sure that owner occupiers are on "a level playing field" when it comes to buying the housing stock that is available now - while we wait for the 300,000 houses a year promised in the next decade.
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Seven police stations in the Gwent force area are to reopen permanently, the Police and Crime Commissioner Ian Johnston has said. | The front counter service in Caerphilly, Chepstow, Maindee, Monmouth, Pontypool, Risca and Ystrad Mynach was closed or reduced in 2012.
They were initially reopened in 2014 and following a consultation, Mr Johnston says they will stay open.
"I'm delighted to announce that these stations will remain open," he said.
The stations will open on weekdays 09:00-17:00 GMT; in addition, Abertillery station will open on Thursday and Friday 09:00-17:00 and Brynmawr station will open Monday to Wednesday 09:00-17:00.
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Aberdeen-based First Oil Expro has entered administration. | As a result, Enquest and Cairn Energy will take on the company's 15% stake in the Kraken North Sea Oil field.
Enquest will now have a 70.5% interest in the vast field, and Cairn a 29.5% interest.
First Oil began reviewing its operations last year as the oil price fell and started the process of selling parts of the business.
'Significant challenges'
Zennor Petroleum is expected to take on its interests in the Mungo and Monan, Bacchus, Cormorant East and Causeway fields.
Blair Nimmo, joint administrator and head of restructuring at KPMG in Scotland, said the sales, via the administration process, were a reflection of the "significant challenges facing UK North Sea oil and gas companies in the current oil price environment".
He said: "These sales will ensure that the group's four largest field interests are smoothly transferred to new ownership, and provide time to resolve the position concerning the smaller assets in the group's portfolio."
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A further five people have been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to murder a man who was found with head injuries in a back garden. | Father-of-two Frazer Brabant, 34, was assaulted in Gershwin Road, Basingstoke, shortly after 22:30 GMT on 31 October 2019, police said.
He died in hospital nearly three months later on 21 January.
A total of 15 people have been arrested on suspicion of taking part in a murder plot although no-one has been charged.
The latest suspects, who were arrested in Basingstoke, are men aged 22, 25, 27, 28 and 32. They remain in custody.
In November 2019, five men were arrested and released under investigation.
One of the suspects was rearrested in June 2020, along with three men and two women, who were also released under investigation.
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Websites that connect pilots with passengers who are willing to share the cost of a flight in a private plane are making light aviation more accessible. It can be a cheap way to travel, but people need to be aware of the potential pitfalls. | By Jon DouglasReporter, You & Yours
The flight I took from a grassy airstrip in North Yorkshire was tremendous fun. There was no long run up. The little plane took to the air almost as soon as we started moving.
We flew at the perfect height to get breath-taking views as we followed the coast looking down on Whitby, Scarborough and Robin Hood's Bay.
But if I had been relying on this flight to get me to a certain place at a certain time, I would have been disappointed. It had to be rescheduled twice because of the weather.
I had met the pilot, Nathan, through the website, Wingly. It's one of a number of platforms set up so pilots and passengers can share the costs of a flight.
"This is my eighth flight with many more bookings to go," said Nathan who uses a plane that belongs to his local flying club.
"It's a good way of sharing my hobby, meeting new people and it is more interesting to be honest."
Pilots register online submitting copies of their pilot's licence, medical certificate, details of their experience and the aircraft they will be flying. Once verified, they are able to publish their planned flights.
Any passenger who chooses to join a flight books online and pays a share of its costs.
The websites make money by charging the passengers service fees.
No profit allowed
Private pilots are allowed to carry up to six cost-sharing passengers in a light aircraft providing no profit is made. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says costs do not have to be shared equally but the pilot must make a contribution.
No profit is allowed because that would make it a commercial flight for which an Air Operator Certificate would be needed from the CAA. It is illegal to conduct commercial flights without that certificate.
Andrew Waller has been a passenger on eight cost-shared flights from near his home in Oxford.
"I've been as far afield as Perranporth down in Cornwall and then done some local sight-seeing flights of about an hour", he tells me.
"The Perranporth trip worked out at about £200. An hour local flight can be as little as £40. It varies depending upon the type of aircraft and the expenses that pilot incurs.
"Obviously the view from up there is absolutely stunning".
Last minute cancellations
Some passengers have found the flights can offer a quicker or cheaper alternative to other forms of transport. They can post requests for flights to chosen destinations online, but there is no guarantee a pilot will be available to take them.
Unlike a train which takes people right to the heart of a city, these flights rely on airfields in more remote locations.
One of Wingly's founders, Emeric de Waziers, accepts it is not always a viable means of transportation.
"Weather is a really important constraint for light aviation and flights can be cancelled [at] the last minute that's why we are focussing the company on more leisure types of flights".
Emeric thinks it can work as a means of getting from A to B but says "overall you shouldn't use Wingly as a business way to travel".
Wingly started in France but launched in the UK in July 2016. To date, it says more than 400 passengers have used it to join cost-shared flights from UK airports.
Other websites - such as Coavmi or Skyuber - offer similar services but Wingly currently claims to be the biggest in the UK in terms of the number of flights being offered.
Safety worries
The growth of these websites can be a boon for pilots who need to fly for a minimum number of hours each year to keep their pilot's licences so value the chance to find people willing to share their costs.
But not all private pilots are enthusiastic about flying with a stranger sitting next to them.
Others worry about the safety of passengers flying with relatively inexperienced pilots who fly for a hobby rather than as a profession.
The websites themselves make it clear these are not commercial flights.
Prior to a passenger placing a booking, Wingly's website states: "you should be aware of the fact that safety rules for cost-shared flights are not as strict as they are for commercial flights. This means that there is more risk involved in taking a cost-shared flight than buying a ticket from a commercial airline operator".
The risks are "comparable to car transportation" according to Wingly's Emeric de Waziers who maintains "it remains something safe to do".
"At the end of the day the flights are conducted by pilots and those pilots - as per regulations - are responsible for all the safety issues", says Carlos Oliveira, the co-founder of Skyuber.
Anyone with any concerns - either a pilot or a passenger - can cancel at any time without incurring any cost, he adds.
The Civil Aviation Authority says that by enabling private pilots to share the cost of flights, it is "anticipated that they will find it easier to remain in current flying practice and therefore maintain high safety standards".
It advises anyone looking to book a seat in a cost-shared flight to conduct their own research and to ask questions prior to any flight.
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Photographers rarely work in a vacuum, their work is usually inspired by - or a reflection of - what has come before.
At times that trigger is hard to define, but some projects use an existing body of work as the start point. Magnum Retold is one such series, where photographers take their cue from work by early members of Magnum Photos. | Phil CoomesPicture editor@philcoomeson Twitter
One of those is Temples of Stone, by Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin, who travelled to Egypt and Morocco in the footsteps of one of the founders of the agency, Briton George Rodger, who made the journey through north Africa 60 years ago.
"I have a huge respect for and memory of George's work: from his powerful wartime images of Bergen-Belsen to his monumental take on the Nuba," says Franklin.
"But I was drawn emphatically to his north African landscapes because they said so much about George, about his restlessness, his curiosity, and his search for some understanding of how nature and society functioned in Africa."
The four founders of Magnum Photos, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David "Chim" Seymour, divided the world so they had their own patch to cover, with Rodger focusing on Africa. He made many trips to the continent, including one in 1957 where he crossed the Sahara with his wife Jinx, covering 4,000 miles in three months.
The resulting pictures show the beauty of the landscape, historic monuments and of course the people he met on the way. The world has inevitably moved on, yet the landscapes of today are much the same as those the Rodgers crossed by Land Rover all those years ago.
"George Rodger loved the desert, Africa, the open road, the unexplored in landscape, and people untouched by modernity," says Franklin. "This last feature has gone, but I found the rest much as he'd left them in the 1950s.
"Starting points are wonderful opportunities for photographers and artists. A path has been cleared but the road is unmade. This allows for the creative possibility to build something new."
"I've always been interested in landscape and especially the interface between nature and society. The joy is in the way everything overlaps: weathered statues and rock buttresses, human and natural forms, each chiselled out of the desert and stone outcrops in a union of dream-world archaeology.
"This eventually became the focus, the road ahead for me. It led to this project and tribute to George Rodger."
Rodger was working at a time when photographers would vanish for months on end, returning from assignments with bags of film which would be edited and crafted into shape to run in magazines and newspapers. Today, of course, for many it's all instant uploads and social sharing.
"I grew up in that world of waiting weeks and sometimes months to see the photographs I'd shot - especially when working for National Geographic," says Franklin.
"Then there was a long wait for publication, so a lot more tweaking, checking and even reshooting would take place. The faster turnaround of images presents challenges as well as opportunities.
"A lack of depth and context in the world of instant uploads is a serious issue, but one that is widely recognised in the industry. The opportunity is there to work on longer-form stories, on photo-books, but again this demands more financial opportunities for photographers to work in this way."
Photographs are about recording traces of things, many of which pass in an instant; others, like these stone formations and statues, last far longer. So why is it important to record these objects that may well outlive the images made of them?
"Photography - images - help us to understand what's going on in different parts of the world in a way that's a struggle sometimes for text.
"Documentary photography, done with sensitivity, helps us to engage socially, politically and environmentally with human and planetary issues from the smallest story about life in a suburban-edge town to the largest story of conflict, various forms of abuse or species extinction."
Temples of Stone, by Stuart Franklin can be seen at the Leica Studio Mayfair, 17 January - 16 February 2018.
You can see more of George Rodger's photographs from his trip in 1957 on the Magnum Photos website. Photographs © Stuart Franklin / Magnum Photos and © George Rodger / Magnum Photos
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A man and a woman have been arrested following reports of gunshots in Huddersfield. | Armed police surrounded a business on Lockwood Road, and the main road was closed for several hours, following emergency calls at 10:45 GMT.
No-one was hurt and police said evidence of a firearm being discharged was yet to be confirmed.
Extra patrols are in place and witnesses are being asked to contact West Yorkshire Police.
The two have been arrested in connection with the discharge of a firearm, the force added.
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Police officers have joked about getting a "buy one get one free" offer after seizing two cars belonging to a husband and wife. | A Nissan was stopped by Derbyshire Police in Bolsover after registering as uninsured.
The driver was also found to only have a provisional licence.
When his "helpful wife" came to pick him up from the roadside officers said they found her Citroen was also uninsured and seized that as well.
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Clarks in Bishop Auckland was once a place where tiny feet were squeezed into their first pair of school shoes. Now, half-packed cardboard boxes are strewn across the deserted shop floor. | By Harriet Agerholm, Emma Simpson & Daniele PalumboBBC News
"This isn't goodbye," the notice in the window reassures passers-by. You can still buy Clarks shoes online - or drive 20 minutes to Durham.
Clarks is just the latest shop to close its doors in the north-eastern English town. More than one in five properties lie vacant, almost double the national average of 12%. The deteriorating centre - its shop windows smeared with white paint - tells a similar story to many high streets across the country, which have struggled with the rise of online shopping.
Bishop Auckland, with its 25,000 residents, used to be the heart of coal-mining country. The gradual demise of the industry in the latter half of the last century brought with it decades of economic decline.
But the fortunes of the town may be about to change. It has something that others don't: a multimillionaire willing to pour his own money into its revival.
Former stockbroker Jonathan Ruffer's interest in Bishop Auckland isn't immediately clear - the 68-year-old had no connection to Bishop Auckland until a decade ago. But the avid art collector decided to intervene when the Church of England chose to sell the town's most famous paintings that hung in Auckland Castle.
He bought the set of portraits by the Spanish master Francisco de Zurbaran. Then he bought the castle.
"My original intention was to buy the paintings as a way of saying 'I am on your side' to the community," says Mr Ruffer. "I was on the lookout for some way to engage with somewhere in the North East. I'm not the slightest bit interested in visitor attractions, I'm only interested in regeneration."
After three years of extensive renovations, the 900-year-old castle re-opened to the public last year.
So how much money is the businessman willing to spend? "I'm very shy when it comes to talking about the amount of expenditure," he says. "I'm a drain-pipe - whatever comes in at the top, leaves the bottom," he adds cryptically.
Mr Ruffer grew up in Stokesley, near Middlesbrough, before heading south to study at Cambridge University. He went on to become one of the City's most successful fund managers, co-founding a London-based investment company. There he served wealthy clients and managed billions of pounds' worth of assets. It made him rich, too.
Then Mr Ruffer, who describes himself as "quite Goddy", decided to give most of his fortune away. Philanthropy is a "vomit-inducing word", the devout Christian says, but he can't find another way to describe what he is doing.
Seven years ago, Mr Ruffer started a charity to reinvigorate Bishop Auckland. Out of it has come an art museum documenting life in the coal mines, and from next year, tourists will be able to visit a Spanish art gallery which will house the masterpieces he bought 10 years earlier.
A glass-domed restaurant in the walled gardens of the castle will open, and there is a plan to renovate several derelict hotels. The Auckland Project has also been buying up empty shops, but its proposals for them are still under wraps.
Although Mr Ruffer is vague about the exact amount he's spending, the scale of the project is clear. He hopes the tourist attractions, which are just off the main shopping artery, Newgate Street, will help the "circulation of blood" to the town centre.
But what do the locals make of it?
David Little, who works in a shop on the High Street selling electrical appliances, says the castle is "beautiful", but its custom "doesn't trickle down to day-to-day business". "People go to the castle and go home," he says. "Tourists don't see Bishop - they see a car park."
Mr Little, who has worked in the shop for 24 years, says old-fashioned customer service and a loyal following has helped the business survive, but he has seen a decline over the years. "The footfall just isn't what it used to be," he says. "There's businesses going all the time."
One of the things sucking trade away from the high street is a new out-of-town retail park. In a heavy blow, Marks & Spencer upped sticks and moved to the complex in 2013, despite a petition signed by thousands of locals. By 2017, the big names were stampeding to the exit. Dorothy Perkins and Beales were among 20 chains that shut up shop.
'Too much emphasis' on regenerating cities
The dramatic changes over the last ten years are illustrated by interactive map below, which uses figures on openings and closures collected by the Local Data Company. There are now 61 vacant units - more than half of which have sat empty for more than three years.
Bishop Auckland: How one High Street has changed in 10 years
Source: Local Data Company, map built using Carto
Carl Marshall, who is responsible for economic regeneration at Durham County Council, insists the retail park is not solely to blame for the high street's decay. "Consumer habits have changed," he says. "If they weren't accessing out-of-town retail in Bishop Auckland they would just be travelling into Durham city, just up the road."
So instead of trying to hang on to the big national retailers, the council is counting on Bishop Auckland attracting tourists who will visit local independent shops. Some new businesses have opened in recent years, with the number of cafes increasing. The new shops are not hipster boutiques - one of the cafes is a '50s-themed coffee shop which sells cream teas.
While the council has bid for a £25m slice of a government fund to help struggling high streets, it's aware that Mr Ruffer's investment is on a scale that no local authority could match. Mr Ruffer is a "visionary" who has given Bishop Auckland a "unique opportunity" to become a tourist attraction, the councillor says.
For a family-run business that was set up more than 50 years ago, Mr Ruffer's investment offers hope. Luca Rea-Dobson - a scaffolder who helps his mother Anna run the "proper cafe" - says the businessman's presence is a "blessing". He laughs as he says the former stockbroker "could have gone anywhere". But Mr Rea-Dobson says the businessman's investment has "split the town", with some locals becoming impatient. "You get a lot of people complaining that it's not happened overnight," he says.
One of the multimillionaire's first projects was Kynren, an annual outdoor show on a farm near the castle that started in 2016. The performance tells the history of England with a 1,000-strong cast and crew made up of local volunteers.
"I laughed when I first heard about it," says Mr Rea-Dobson. But he volunteered to take part anyway. "I had sleepless nights - I put scaffolding up for a living. I'd never wielded a sword before," he says. "But after the first show, the whole town was buzzing."
Kynren is now a top UK attraction on TripAdvisor.
Despite such successes, Mr Ruffer is aware that regenerating Bishop Auckland will take time. "We always felt this was a 25 year project," he says. "We're not quite half way through."
In the meantime, Mr Rea-Dobson's mum, Anna, says she is seeing fewer and fewer people come through her cafe's door, although a loyal base of older regulars is keeping her going. She finds the promise of future trade from Mr Ruffer's tourist attractions encouraging. "It's what I hang on to, really," she says. She pauses, then adds: "How long I can hang on is another thing."
Bishop Auckland's high street faces significant challenges. Like other towns, it's going to have to adapt to survive, though it's lucky to have a rich heritage and historical assets to make the most of. Its past is its future, in many ways, but saving a town isn't a quick fix.
Still, could this town be at a tipping point?
BBC News will be following the progress of Bishop Auckland's town centre this year as part of the #BBCMyHighStreet project.
Do you have a story about your local high street which we should cover? Email [email protected]
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An investigation by BBC Wales Investigates has exposed a secretive network of illegal hunters in south Wales.
The programme team went undercover with two badger-baiting gangs as part of a six-month investigation .
Wearing a hidden camera "John", a former special operations soldier, infiltrated one group to reveal the criminal activity of badger digging and lamping, where wild animals are torn apart and the hunters' own dogs are often abused. | I've had some experiences in the military that I thought would prepare me for dealing with this and I knew there was going to be some violence towards these animals but what I saw was shocking.
To these people, killing animals is a sport - the more brutal, the better.
The BBC team was able infiltrate the gangs using social media.
They had discovered that convicted badger baiter Christian Latcham from the Rhondda Valleys, south Wales, was active in online groups for legal hunting with dogs.
He then put them in touch with another man - Tomas Young, 25, from the Gwent Valleys - who invited us out on what turned out to be illegal hunting trips.
The gangs are mostly working-class guys in their twenties. They use social media like Snapchat to organise digs and share pictures.
These people are very suspicious and guarded.
There were a number of occasions where I was questioned quite heavily about my background.
They asked if I was an undercover police officer or if I was wearing recording equipment and I had to use my skills to try and persuade them that that wasn't the case.
I didn't feel afraid as such but I got the feeling that if I'd have been found out, it might have turned nasty. I feared they might have used the dogs to intimidate me.
I went with them three times to try to capture evidence.
The first time Tomas invited me "lamping" - hunting at night with high-powered torches - in the Forest of Dean. I didn't know at the time that this would be illegal hunting.
But on the way there, they started talking about the types of animals we were going to see - deer, boar, possibly some foxes and maybe even some badgers if they were out.
They said there would be "loads of guys" out hunting that night and that they knew of gangs that came from as far away as Newcastle to go lamping in the Forest.
Tomas and another man - Ryan Harrison - had three dogs with them - one which was big, quite aggressive-looking, with a pit bull sort of setting and two lurcher-type dogs.
We went into a field and Ryan shone the lamp at some deer - I could see about six to eight pairs of eyes in the dark.
The dogs immediately started chasing them down and the two men were getting really, really excited.
One deer ran straight into a fence and got trapped.
One of the lurchers had it by the back legs and was trying to drag it back through the fence.
There was an awful noise, the sound of the deer screaming, trying to get away.
At this point, Ryan jumped on it, and started to struggle with it but the deer kicked him in the face and at that point he let go.
The deer ran off and managed to escape from the dogs but without doubt it was injured and was in awful pain.
Ryan had been injured - he had damage to his mouth where the deer had kicked him and his hands were also hurt but to him it was all part of the sport and the injuries were badges of honour.
The night was about to get even worse.
We drove to another area, where we spotted some wild boar.
Very, very quickly, the two guys and their dogs were out of the vehicle and ran off chasing the boar.
I chased after them and when I caught up with them, the scene in front of me was horrific.
One lurcher was on the back end of the boar and the bull cross dog had latched onto its snout.
There were horrendous screams.
Ryan was trying to drag the boar down and the animal was really strong, kicking out, fighting for its life.
Tomas then pulled out a large knife and started stabbing the boar.
It died in front of me. It seemed to make the men quite frenzied.
Tomas even filmed himself stabbing the boar on his phone and played it back in the car afterwards.
I'd never seen anything like it before; somebody hunting down and killing a wild animal like that, just to see how tough and violent their dogs could be.
It's a badge of pride to have an injured dog which carries on fighting.
The boar's carcass was hidden in undergrowth and Tomas told me that "one of the boys" would pick it up later.
I also went out with Tomas and some other men on a couple of badger digs, which is where they send a terrier into a badger sett wearing a transmitter collar so they locate it in the sett from above ground.
Once they hear that it's found a badger, they will dig down into the sett so the other dogs can pull it out and fight it to the death.
The first time, they didn't get anything, despite them digging for around eight hours.
Tomas got frustrated with his dog because although it seemed to have found a badger, it hadn't latched onto it and let it get away.
He was getting quite a lot of ribbing from the other guys in the group, saying his dog wasn't tough enough.
That's what really gets to these guys, if their dog isn't aggressive enough and doesn't immediately go down and attack the badger - they think that's a reflection of them as a handler.
What they want is to see the dog come back out with injuries on it because that's a sign of a tough dog.
They then photograph these dogs - with their injuries - and share the photos with other illegal hunters with a view to breeding them.
On the way home, Tomas told me he was disappointed with his dog's performance. Then he told me he'd shot dogs before when they hadn't worked in the way he'd wanted them to.
The litters of prized working dogs can go for quite a bit of money - a few hundred pounds a pup.
The second time, I went with Tomas and Ryan up towards the Forest of Dean area again, and quite quickly they found a sett.
You could hear some growling from the dog that was underground so they started digging down and they could see the black and white fur of the badger.
They thought this was an adult so sent one of the bigger lurcher dogs into the ground to pull it out.
Two dogs eventually dragged it out but it was a cub.
It had no chance and within seconds it was torn apart.
Ryan took it off the dogs and threw it on the side.
They weren't happy it was a cub because they don't put up much of a fight and the whole aim of this exercise for the badger baiters is for their dogs to have some credible combat; a proper fight with an adult badger who could do some damage to the dogs.
They were going to leave this cub, but I saw it was still alive, it was still breathing and I had to tell them to put it out of its misery.
I thought I was going to blow my cover then because that could have been something that alerted them that I wasn't 100% the way there were, as much as I was trying to act like I was.
It was difficult to see how these men treat their dogs; some of them were kicked or dragged and there was a lot of abuse thrown at them.
You could see the dogs cowering at times, it appeared they were afraid of their owners.
It's very common to have the bottom part of a dog's jaw being damaged or ripped away in a fight with a badger.
But when dogs come out of the setts on the digs I filmed they would turn them around and push them straight back in to carry on looking for the badger.
Generally badger baiters don't take them to vets with their injuries because that would be recorded and reported so they stitch up their wounds themselves.
They are valuable dogs for hunting and breeding so they're a commodity to them and they'll protect the commodity but they don't have any concern about the feelings of the animal.
And they're quite happy to dispose of them once they're no longer a useful commodity.
Tomas told me he had shot dogs before which hadn't performed properly on hunts.
My lasting feeling after being undercover with these people is that what they are doing is just horrific.
It was far, far worse than what I expected to see.
They don't care if the animals they kill suffer; they're just killing them for sport.
Exposed: The Secret World of Badger Baiters on BBC One Wales at 22:35 and on BBC iPlayer.
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Home schooling can be tough. It's difficult to concentrate, there's emotional exhaustion, boredom, a lack of motivation and it's really hard not going out to see friends. And that's just the parents. | By Sean CoughlanBBC News family and education correspondent
This winter lockdown is taking its toll on families, now struggling even more on the black ice of uncertainty as no-one can say when schools in England are going to reopen for most pupils again.
"There's a sense of fatigue," says Jacqueline Smallwood, who is at home with three secondary-school children. She says her own "concentration levels have fallen dramatically".
"It's so repetitive that it just makes you feel tired," she says of the latest lockdown and the "silent struggle" facing both parents and their children to try to get motivated.
There might have been some guilty enjoyment at the start of the year when the school term was initially delayed, not having to get up and out on cold January mornings.
Until it dawned on them that this was becoming something much longer than a few weeks.
It's morphed from early January to half term in mid-February and now maybe Easter in early April or even later. And Jacqueline says, as a matter of "respect", parents need to know what's happening about schools.
The confusion over a return date seems to have further frayed the nerves of parents.
'Stuck at home'
The mother, who lives outside Canterbury in Kent, says she worries about the pressures building up on young people.
For teenagers like her sons, she says this "should be a pivotal time in their lives," when they're beginning to get some independence and when social lives are hugely important - but instead they're stuck inside with their parents.
"We can't live like the Waltons forever," she says, referencing the US TV series of a folksy family relying on each other.
The first lockdown created an unexpected sense of togetherness, an "enforced bonding" that she says turned out to be a "massive positive".
But Jacqueline, who works as a writer, sees no such upside to the latest lockdown. There is a collective frustration - and she says it has been made even worse by the confusion about when schools will go back.
The online home-schooling seems to be working, she says, with teachers trying to boost the enthusiasm levels, but it's no real substitute for being in school. And she wants much more clarity about when they will go back.
'Uncertainty'
"I've tried not to be political about decisions being made, but you can't help but feel disappointed. They don't seem to understand how real people are living," she says.
She says when politicians say maybe schools will or won't be back by Easter, they don't realise how much that uncertainty affects families trying to plan for what comes next.
Educational psychologist Dan O'Hare says the "key word is 'uncertainty'".
Not knowing what is coming next adds to the pressure, he says, and children out of school are already facing big unknowns such as what's going to happen about exams or when will they see their friends and teachers.
"It's really stressful for children and their families," says Dr O'Hare, who is co-chair of the British Psychological Society's division for educational and child psychology. "They need a sense of a plan."
Missing friends
This lockdown is also in the depths of winter - and he says employers need to think about making sure staff working from home are able to take a break in daylight hours, so that families can get outside.
It's no use asking parents to answer work emails all day and expect them to go out when it's dark.
For some families it has got very difficult.
"It's affected her emotionally a lot," says Dave in Bolton, who is worrying about his six-year-old daughter, who has been crying because she misses her friends.
"It's awful, you can't put a positive spin on it. She's at that age where she's enjoying her friends, becoming more socialised," he told BBC 5 Live.
"She's quite a confident little girl and I can't help worry that being stuck at home is going to impact her in the longer term."
The father says many of her classmates are still going into school - and that makes it even harder when she sees her friends on school Zoom calls.
Jen Locke in Newcastle makes the point that women can often be "the most adversely affected by the decision to keep schools closed".
She says home schooling has "fallen squarely on my shoulders", helping her children in the day and then shifting her work with an IT company into the evening, so it's an early start through to a very late finish.
"It's a huge mental strain… I'm knackered from it all," she says, right down to trying to get children to bed who aren't tired because they're not going out.
A lockdown weariness seems to be out there, despite the best efforts of schools.
Simon Armstrong in Bristol, whose son is in secondary school, says: "Virtual lessons, no matter how well delivered, are a woeful substitute for real lessons."
"I am at the end of my tether," he says.
The Department for Education said: "We are committed to reopening schools as soon as the public health picture allows, and will inform schools, parents and pupils of plans ahead of February half term."
But Labour has accused the government of causing "chaos and confusion" for parents and schools.
The National Association of Head Teachers said: "Now is the moment for calm heads to decide on a sustainable return to school, not another chaotic and last-minute set of decisions that could easily result in a yo-yo return to lockdown."
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World War One and Vietnam are the wars most closely associated with post-traumatic stress - but it was also a huge problem for the combatants in World War Two, and one that may still be affecting their children and grandchildren today. | By Stephen MulveyBBC Stories
At the end of the 1962 film, The Longest Day, a young American paratrooper shares a cigarette somewhere in Normandy with a British fighter pilot, played by Richard Burton. It's a meeting of innocence and experience. Burton's character has been fighting since the Blitz but has finally received a wound that will end his war. For the hapless Pte Arthur "Dutch" Schultz, on the other hand, it's all just beginning. After landing in a tree miles from his intended drop zone, he's spent his first day of combat searching for his unit, walking towards the sound of fighting, but never reaching it. He hasn't yet fired a shot in anger.
The real Dutch Schultz's D-Day bore little comparison. It's true he was dropped in the wrong place, but after making contact with other wandering soldiers he soon came under fierce mortar fire and witnessed the mercy killing of a horribly wounded US soldier. By evening he was engaged in a bitter battle for control of a bridge near the town of Sainte-Mère-Église, which continued for four days until German forces eventually withdrew.
In the Netherlands in September 1944, Schultz frantically prayed with his rosary as his company commander died in front of him. For two weeks that winter he was treated in hospital for pneumonia; when he returned more than half his regiment had been killed in the Battle of the Bulge. The horrors culminated in the liberation of the Wöbbelin concentration camp, where he later said "it was difficult to distinguish the living from the dead".
Whether or not the irrepressible boy-next-door played by actor Richard Beymer in The Longest Day bore any relation to the real Schultz who parachuted into France, the man who returned home to the US was entirely different. The happy-go-lucky joker his girlfriend had been waiting for since 1943 had turned sombre and melancholy. After they married in December 1945, she had her first experience of his nightmares - as they travelled west by train to visit his parents, he shouted in his sleep and tried to climb out of the window. She also noticed that he had began to swig regularly from a flask.
"My father was a functioning alcoholic," says Schultz's daughter, Carol Schultz Vento. "It was self-medicating, really."
The dominant narrative at this time was relentlessly upbeat, she says. The heroes of World War Two were now building a prosperous post-war society. People who remarked upon the large numbers of marriages in the immediate post-war period tended not to mention the record number of divorces. The fact that veterans' hospitals were full of men with serious mental health problems went undiscussed. The movies of the 50s and 60s did not depict the reality of war.
"People did not want to know what it was like," her father told her.
Unlike some troubled veterans, Dutch Schultz was never violent and didn't fly into rages. When he was drunk he was "either goofy or crying", Carol says.
But his nightmares continued for the rest of his life. Carol's mother described routinely waking up to find not only the sheets but also the mattress soaked in sweat. After they divorced, Schultz called Carol one night, sobbing down the phone line. His new wife had tried to slit her wrists in the bath and Schultz said he now wanted to kill himself. He had been a terrible father, he said; Carol told him this wasn't true. Years later she learned that he had been holding a gun to his head as they spoke.
After this Schultz went into rehab and built a career running anti-alcohol and anti-addiction programmes. He fought continuously to persuade the Department of Veterans Affairs to recognise and treat the psychological wounds he had brought back from the war, winning this battle only at the age of 80 - two years before he died.
After the existence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was officially recognised by the US government in 1980, in the wake of Vietnam, researchers began to take an interest on the illness on soldiers' families. Studies were already suggesting that the children of Holocaust survivors could be severely affected by the trauma experienced by their parents. "It would also be easier to believe that they, rather than their parents, had suffered the corrupting, searing hell," wrote the author of the first paper on intergenerational trauma among Holocaust survivors.
There has been very little comparable work on the families of traumatised WW2 veterans, but one 1986 paper by Robert Rosenheck, focusing on the families of five men receiving treatment for chronic PTSD, suggested a range of possible outcomes.
"For some of the veterans' offspring," he wrote, "it was as if they were… constantly embroiled in a shared emotional cauldron."
For these children, life was a series of anticipations of and reactions to their father's moods, impulses and obsessions. For some it resulted in a preoccupation with surviving danger or winning fights - "a virtual mirroring of issues preoccupying their fathers". For others, "the intense emotional involvement consisted of frantic efforts to keep their father calm, out of trouble, and in as good spirits as possible".
One of the 12 children in the study, who grew up knowing of his father's nightmares, suffered from enduring nightmares himself, in which he and his father were drafted to fight in a war and he was desperately looking for ways to keep his father from danger.
By contrast there were other children who kept aloof from their fathers, and some who generally disengaged from the emotional life of the family.
The group of children most deeply affected by their fathers' PTSD over-identified with them, Rosenheck said, experiencing "secondary traumatisation". Another group, in which there was less evidence of strong identification with their fathers as war veterans, he labelled "rescuers". These manifested "an intense sense of responsibility" for their fathers, he wrote.
Carol Schultz Vento feels that she is in the "rescuer" category. She remained close to her father and took a strong interest in his life and his problems. After therapy herself, she started asking him about things he had never spoken about - and wrote a book about his wartime experiences, his struggles with PTSD and the failure of the post-war society to recognise the suffering of so many servicemen of the "Greatest Generation".
Roy "Eric" Cooper left Burma at the end of the war, but Burma never left him, according to his granddaughter, Ceri-Anne Edmunds.
"Every second of every day, Burma was with him, even to his last breath," she says. "He would wake up with nightmares every single day."
Up and about by 4am, he would do the same exercises on a mat every morning, using tins of vegetables as weights, until he died in February this year at the age of 98.
In Burma, Cooper was a sniper whose job was to provide cover for troops advancing in the jungle. If a Japanese marksman killed one of his comrades, he felt responsible. He was particularly troubled by one incident when a bullet whizzed past his hat and hit another man in the head. "I should have got him," he said.
On another occasion he had to search for the dead body of a friend. The Japanese soldiers would take the boots and then booby-trap the corpse. Cooper described having to prod the body with a stick to check it was safe to move and to bury.
In some ways he liked the jungle; he liked living close to the animals. He put up with the leeches, foot-rot, shirts that disintegrated from being soaked in sweat. The experience had shaped him before it began to haunt him.
Unlike many soldiers of his generation Cooper recognised, on his return to the UK, that he had a problem. He had the courage to go to a doctor and say, "I don't feel very well in my mind," Ceri-Anne says. Unfortunately, the psychiatrist he was referred to compounded the problem by putting him on a high dose of valium, which he continued to take for 10 years.
"It was amazing to begin with, but then it backfired," says Ceri-Anne.
He started drinking heavily, occasionally becoming frighteningly angry. Though he was never physically violent, to Ceri-Anne's knowledge, he could be very threatening.
Then, in an extraordinary act of willpower, he stopped taking the valium overnight, stopped drinking and learned to strengthen his powers of self-control by practising martial arts. But now he had another source of guilt - the way he had behaved towards his family.
"I am a bad man," he told Ceri-Anne, years later.
"You are my hero," she replied.
Cooper fell off the wagon a number of times in his life, and was always prone to outbursts of anger, as well as the nightmares and flashbacks. But he was also loving, protective and supportive of all his family until the day he died, Ceri-Anne says.
Though his behaviour caused strains and divisions within the family, Ceri-Anne grew especially close to her grandfather. He confided in her and listened to her when she gave him advice. She was deeply concerned about his welfare and did whatever she could to help him. Despite the jumping of a generation, her relationship with him mirrors the "rescuer" relationship between Carol Schultz Vento and her father.
According to researchers from the Centre for Military Health Research at King's College, London, there is now a consensus that a close relationship exists between the incidence of death and injury on the battlefield and the number of psychiatric casualties, though it may be mediated by the nature of the fighting, the morale of the troops and the quality of leadership.
Normandy and Burma saw some of the most intense fighting of the war, and by 1944 the British military had learned that provision would have to be made for psychiatric treatment. Experience had shown that "every man has his breaking point". But the centres set up in Normandy for mental health treatment were nonetheless completely overwhelmed. Many casualties had to be sent back to the UK.
Treatment close to the front was extremely limited. Soldiers were given sedatives to knock them out and enable them to sleep. Then they were given good food, a wash and reassurance. They were described as being "exhausted" - a deliberate attempt to demedicalise the condition. It was thought that the term "shell shock" used in World War One had encouraged men to believe that they were ill, and set back a natural recovery process.
Despite claims at the time that a large proportion of those treated for exhaustion in Normandy returned to their units, Prof Edgar Jones of the King's Centre for Military Health Research and Stephen Ironside have calculated that only 1% went directly back into action. Some of the rest will have returned to combat after a period of further convalescence. Others were directed into non-combat roles or sent home.
Many traumatised men also managed to keep going without treatment, Jones suggests.
In a study of people receiving war pensions for psychiatric illness between 1940 and 1980, a team of researchers found that the 10 most common symptoms were anxiety, depression, sleep problems, headache, irritability/anger, tremor/shaking, difficulty completing tasks, poor concentration, repeated fears and avoidance of social contact.
Some of these symptoms could contribute to the "shared emotional cauldron" detected by Robert Rosenheck in the traumatised veterans' families, which led some children to share their father's pain.
But for Prof Siobhan O'Neill of Ulster University, the most obvious way for a parent's trauma to affect a child would be by hindering the development of a strong and secure attachment between parent and child in the early years of the child's life.
"It's pretty well accepted that an impact on the attachment between parent and child will impact on mental health," she says. "A traumatised parent can have difficulty forming a secure attachment with the child, and families that have been affected by violence, that are rife with drug and alcohol abuse - dysfunctional families - this is detrimental, and children may not do as well."
She also finds "plausible" recent research that suggests the effects of trauma could be inherited by means of chemical changes to the surface of genes, altering the way they behave. This field of study is known as epigenetics; the relationship between the genes and the chemical changes to their surface (epigenetic marks) has been compared to the relationship between the hardware and software of a computer.
O'Neill points to a study of mice that were given electric shocks when exposed to the scent of cherry blossom. The researchers found that the children and grandchildren of these mice also showed signs of anxiety in the presence of the scent.
There have also been many intriguing studies involving humans. One revealed that children in the womb during a Dutch wartime famine were prone to obesity in adulthood, and tended to die younger than those born just before or conceived just after. The researchers also found an epigenetic mark that these children had in common.
But while scientists have identified a molecular pathway through which the transmission of the effects of trauma from parent to child might occur in mice, this has not yet been achieved in the case of humans.
"At the current time, the idea that epigenetic mechanisms underlie clinical observations in offspring of trauma survivors represents a hypothesis to be tested," wrote Rachel Yehuda, one of the leaders in the field, in a paper with Amy Lehrner last year.
O'Neill notes that there is sometimes resistance to the idea of epigenetically transmitted transgenerational trauma "because it's seen as deterministic… the idea that you are doomed from the start, and that babies are born with a disadvantage".
If we were all carrying biological traces of our grandfathers' or great-grandfathers' war traumas, not to mention our ancestors' experiences of famine, rape, forced migration or slavery, it would certainly be a gloomy picture.
But O'Neill cautions that epigenetic marks are most likely to indicate a predisposition rather than an inevitable outcome - and they can be reversed, she says.
Epigenetics aside, the study of veterans receiving war pensions for psychiatric illness also reconfirms the obvious point that, unlike "Dutch" Schultz and "Eric" Cooper, people can get better. These days cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is often, though not always, effective.
And trauma can be turned into something positive, O'Neill argues. "People often talk about how their lives are better for it," she says. "Mum and dad have suffered adversity, but children have overcome that. They are strong. They make a commitment that their own children will not be exposed to it."
Carol Schultz Vento is the author of The Hidden Legacy of World War II, a Daughter's Journey of Discovery
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Touring the world and experiencing different cultures sounds glamorous. | Interview by Steffan Powell, words by Vikki BlakeNewsbeat reporters
For England's cricketers however, the pandemic has seen them largely confined to the inside of hotel rooms during their winter tour of Sri Lanka and India.
The trip has been difficult both on the pitch and off it too.
Some of the squad's most senior members have been telling BBC Sounds podcast Press X to Continue that online gaming has been "vital" for their wellbeing.
Usually on a long tour abroad England's cricketers would keep connected by sharing rooms, sightseeing and eating out at new places.
This winter though, they can't do any of those things.
"Touring with these biosecure bubbles has made everything so different," Stuart Broad tells Press X to Continue.
"Because our touring life has gone from being able to experience different things in countries to experiencing a hotel room.
"That's why gaming has become such an influence in the past year because it's the way you socialise with the guys outside of cricket.
"We can't go out to Nando's or anything and grab a bite to eat.
"So you say, 'right, Call of Duty 7pm?' And you might get fifteen or sixteen of us playing and you get to chat and get to know different guys through it."
The team played their first match of the tour at the beginning of January, and while the Test matches have come to an end, one-day games continue until the end of March.
The players are grateful to have been able to go on tour and keep playing in the pandemic, but it's a long time away from home confined to hotels.
All-rounder Ben Stokes tells the podcast: "When you have something taken away from you - like going out for dinner and stuff like that you have to find something else to occupy that time, to help keep in good spirits.
"Gaming's had such a huge role in keeping everyone's mental side of touring in as good a place as it possibly can be."
Playing online has become such an important part of the team's routine that sourcing good internet has is now an essential part of the tour.
Ben says he's never seen a "grumpier group of cricketers" that when they got to Ahmedabad and the wifi was not good enough to play on.
"Gaming, for me mentally, has been vital," Stuart adds. "It's sort of taken over the banter in the changing room.
"It used to be: how did you play at golf the other day? You'd be talking about what you've been up to.
"But because there's not much to do, gaming's taken over.
"Now it's: 'How good was that snipe the other day!' Stokesy and I have got terrible at downloading our clips on our phone and going around the bus in the morning: 'Look at that lads!'"
"If you just want to catch up with your mates that play, then turn on and say 'Hey, jump in the lobby' - it's probably the easiest way to do it," agrees fast bowler Jofra Archer, who says it also helps him connect with players he sees less often.
The team have been streaming their games to interact with fans too.
'There's no abuse'
"It's actually really refreshing, because everyone's who's watching either loves gaming or loves cricket," Stuart says.
"There's no abuse. There's no agenda. It's never: 'Oh, you were rubbish last week'.
"It's all just really positive chat about gaming and good fun, which I've really enjoyed. It's quite rare for social media, to be honest.".
"People enjoy watching average players play for a change!" Ben Stokes laughs.
"They can relate to what we're doing and the emotions - you know, like shouting at the screen, or shouting at each other - because that's what people do at home."
"I guess it's probably a welcome change to some people because you can get a sense of someone's actual personality a bit more this way," agrees Jofra.
And if you thought that the online sessions were just a little fun and relaxation in between tense cricket matches? Well, think again.
"I'd love to say that we don't take it that seriously and we're not that competitive," admits Stuart.
"But it's actually outrageous. You can hear guys on different games down the corridor!
"I spoke with Rory Burns the other night and he's next 7 door to Jofra, and I could hear Jofra through Rory's own headphones, screaming. That's how seriously we're taking it!"
More from Press X to continue
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The Princess Alice sank in the River Thames on 3 September 1878, killing hundreds of ordinary Londoners returning home from a day trip to the seaside. The tragedy, now largely forgotten, dominated newspaper headlines and led to changes to the shipping industry. | By Alice EvansBBC News
A boatman hooks another body out of the foul-smelling Thames, a grisly prize that will earn him five shillings.
A few days before, the Princess Alice had been smashed in two as it returned to London packed with men, women and children who had been on a trip to Kent.
About 650 lives were lost and for weeks bodies decayed in the polluted water or washed up on the riverbank.
On the morning of the disaster, the weather was bright and the passengers were excited as the pleasure steamer set off from London and headed out to catch the end of the summer sun and the fresh sea air of Sheerness.
It was an inexpensive trip - tickets were about two shillings, depending on which stop passengers travelled to.
Most of the approximately 700 people on board were upper working-class or lower middle-class families.
The children were tired but happy after their day at the famous Rosherville Pleasure Gardens in Northfleet, playing on the promenade at Sheerness or wandering around the popular resort of Gravesend.
As the evening drew in, many families took the decision to retreat inside the saloon or to their cabins below.
It was a move that sealed their fates.
Alfred Thomas Merryman, a chef, had been asked at the last minute to work on the ship.
The 30-year-old father of four from Bow, east London, was no doubt grateful for the extra cash, as well as the rare opportunity to escape the dirty streets of the capital.
At about 7:40pm, as the Princess Alice neared North Woolwich Pier, he was standing on the deck by the saloon door.
Just as he was saying how "splendid" the voyage had been, he saw a huge collier (a coal-carrying ship) bearing down on the smaller vessel.
The Bywell Castle ploughed straight into the starboard side of the Princess Alice, which weighed less than a third of the 890-ton collier.
The vessel sliced the Princess Alice in two with a sickening crash.
"The panic on board was terrible, the women and children screaming and rushing to the bridge for safety," Merryman's witness account reads.
"I at once rushed to the captain and asked what was to be done and he exclaimed: 'We are sinking fast, do your best.'
"Those were the last words he said. At that moment, down she went."
As a model held by the National Maritime Museum shows, the ends of the ship rose into the air as the middle sank, sending people on deck hurtling into the watery chasm between.
Merryman and others on deck were pitched into the churning river, while the unfortunate passengers below deck were trapped.
Tons of untreated sewage spewed from outlets near where the boats collided.
The water bubbled with raw detritus, giving out a stench strong enough to leave even the hardiest boatman gagging.
The men, women and children thrashing about in the water breathed in lungfuls of toxic waste.
Despite crew members of the Bywell Castle throwing down planks of wood, lifebuoys and even chicken coops for people to cling to, the heavy Victorian clothes of those in the water dragged them down. For many, death was inevitable.
Deafened by the screams of his doomed fellow passengers, Merryman clung to a piece of wreckage to stay afloat.
But when about 20 desperate people grabbed hold too, it sank.
He started swimming - one of the lucky few who could - and lunged for a rope hanging over the side of the Bywell Castle. He was hauled to safety along with four others.
Other survivors described being overwhelmed by an instinct for survival.
One man told the Illustrated Police News - a somewhat sensationalist tabloid - how he had to push drowning people off him to reach safety.
Claude Hamilton Wiele said: "I found my brother swimming about. We are both good swimmers, and we made for the screw steamer."
The 20-year-old clerk added: "The water was full of people... we had great difficulty in avoiding them.
"A woman clutched me, but I got away, and I saw her go down like a stone."
Merryman was taken to South Woolwich Pier after he was retrieved from the water.
"There were others also rescued but few recovered," he said.
"One boy died on my lap."
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The chef was one of about 130 people pulled from the river alive - several of whom died in the following days and weeks, in part from complications from swallowing the putrid water, The Times reported.
Robert Haines, a musician in the Princess Alice band, was also saved.
The double bass player was fond of ships and had noticed the Bywell Castle a couple of minutes before the collision.
It looked to him as though the collier was heading straight for the smaller boat but he thought little of it, having faith the Bywell Castle would alter its path.
The musician was about to follow his fellow band members downstairs for a break.
He was only about 3ft from the bow of the Bywell Castle when it struck.
For a split second, Haines was frozen in his tracks, not knowing what to do with his bulky instrument.
But he then dropped the double bass and ran up on to the saloon deck.
"In one instant I might say, the fore part severed from the stern and I saw them all go down like a band box," he said.
"Everybody went down except myself."
Haines could not swim, but managed to grab hold of a lifebuoy. He was pulled on to a boat that had been launched from the Bywell Castle.
The men on board dragged a few more survivors from the water - as well as dead bodies - before rowing to safety.
Other small boats on the river came to the aid of drowning passengers, but the rescue mission soon became a morbid effort to recover as many bodies as possible.
In a matter of minutes children had been orphaned, husbands and wives widowed, and whole families wiped out.
Bodies washed up from Limehouse to Erith for days after the crash.
The dead were laid down in their hundreds in temporary mortuaries that popped up across east London - including at Beckton Gas Works, Woolwich Dockyard, the office of the London Steamboat Company and Woolwich Town Hall.
As the terrible shock of the tragedy turned to anger, bereaved family members and local politicians demanded answers.
Why did the ships collide? Who was to blame? Was the Princess Alice overcrowded? Why were more people not saved by lifeboats? Is sewage deadly? Was it true that the captain of the Bywell Castle was drunk?
The day after the disaster, coroner Charles Carttar opened an inquest, while the Board of Trade launched a separate inquiry a few weeks later.
For two gruelling weeks, all the inquest jury could do was observe as a steady stream of bodies and thousands of worried family members filled the streets of Woolwich, gazing at the corpses with feelings of both dread and hope as they searched for a face they recognised.
The coroner eventually accepted that because there was no passenger list, the exact number of people on board the ship, and therefore a precise death toll, would never be known.
Over the next two months, the 19 men on the jury heard hours of evidence, the written version of which was about 5,000 pages long.
On 13 November, the coroner shut them in a room and refused to let them leave without returning a verdict.
At one point, a Times correspondent said 11 jury members wanted to bring a manslaughter charge for the lives lost against those in charge of the Bywell Castle, but 12 votes were needed for a verdict to be accepted.
The next morning, the men had finally made up their minds.
Their main findings were:
However, the simultaneous Board of Trade inquiry came to different conclusions - despite many of the same witnesses giving evidence.
Instead of arguing that both vessels were to blame, it postulated that the Princess Alice had not followed waterway regulations and was entirely at fault.
Concerns were raised in Parliament for years after the disaster to ensure that positive change came out of the tragedy.
From who was responsible for paying for the burials of identified people, to how to clean up the river, Londoners were impassioned about what kind of legacy the sinking would have.
Improvements to the sewage system, the adoption of emergency signalling lights on boats across the globe and the new Royal Albert Dock, which helped to separate heavy goods traffic from the smaller boats, all came as a result of what happened.
Despite the huge loss of life and changes brought about as a result of the sinking of the Princess Alice, today there are few clues as to what happened on that fateful evening.
The bank near where the steamer met its end is quiet; the silence occasionally broken by gulls cawing as they wheel through the sky, and the grating clang of machinery from the scrap yards in Barking.
A memorial plaque was unveiled in Creekmouth after a community group secured a National Lottery grant in 2008.
Across the river, the only reminder at Tripcock Point, close to where the tragedy happened, is a faded and graffiti-marked information board.
Thanks to Joan Lock, author of The Princess Alice Disaster, for her help with this article.
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Not many debutant playwrights can sell out a theatre. | By Neil PriorBBC News
But then again, not many debutant playwrights used to be the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Set in 1581, Dr Rowan Williams' first play, Shakeshafte, opens this week at Swansea's Dylan Thomas Theatre.
The work, which deals with the so-called lost years of William Shakespeare's life, imagines he was a Catholic fleeing Elizabeth I's Protestant spies.
It depicts a meeting between Shakespeare - posing as a schoolmaster under the pseudonym Will Shakeshafte - and martyred Jesuit priest St Edmund Campion.
Swansea-born Dr Williams was Archbishop of Canterbury between 2002 and 2012, and since stepping down has spent four years as master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, studying the life of the Bard.
Reluctant church-goer
Although it was written in 2014, this week will be the first time the play has been performed in public, to coincide with the 400th anniversary celebrations of Shakespeare's death.
Speaking on its completion, Dr Williams said: "Shakespeare knows exactly where he does, and doesn't, want to go, in matters of church and state.
"He deliberately puts some of his plays right outside the Christian, Tudor/Jacobean framework.
"King Lear takes place in a pre-Christian Britain. Some people argue that Cymbeline is about a rupture with Rome, leading to a reconciliation.
"I think Shakespeare did have a recusant Catholic background. My own hunch though is that he didn't go to church much."
The lost years
Although a fictional account, Shakeshafte draws on known historical events.
While there is relatively abundant information on Shakespeare's early life and family background, during his 20s in the 1580s, virtually no documentary evidence can be found of his existence.
In 1985 literary academic E. A. J. Honigmann unearthed a will, which he claimed showed that in 1581 a 'Will Shakeshafte' was acting as a schoolmaster for a Catholic family in Houghton Tower, Lancashire.
Mr Shakeshafte had been recommended for the post by John Cottam, who is reputed to have been Shakespeare's last schoolmaster in Stratford.
Edmund Campion is also known to have visited Houghton Tower around the same time as part of the Jesuits' campaign to re-catholicise England, although the meeting between the two is purely Dr Williams' conjecture.
He added: "We know they both stayed at the same house in Lancashire. I found this a wonderful idea to play with: what might a Jesuit martyr and Shakespeare have said to each other at a time when Queen Elizabeth I was spearheading a brutal repression of the Catholic faith?"
'Spectacular'
Shakeshafte is being performed by the Swansea Little Theatre - Swansea's oldest company - for which Dr Williams himself was an actor in the late 1960s.
Swansea Little Theatre chairman, Dreena Morgan Harvey explained: "I read an article a couple of years ago about Rowan's research into Shakespeare, and we thought at the time, what better way to mark the 400th anniversary than to bring the play to life back home in Swansea.
"We wrote to Rowan, and he was delighted that we'd like to put it on.
"I hope we've done it justice. I think it will look spectacular, with specially-commissioned Elizabethan music and dancing, and wonderful costumes and scenery."
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Two planned strikes by hundreds of bus drivers in South Yorkshire have been called off after a new pay offer. | About 900 drivers were due to stage walkouts on 27 July and 3 August.
But Unite said the strikes had been suspended and after further talks with management the drivers would now vote on "an improved offer" on 30 July.
First South Yorkshire said planned strikes in Doncaster, Sheffield, Rotherham and part of the Derbyshire Dales had been cancelled.
Phil Brown, of Unite, said the union had recommended its members accepted the new package.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].
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Muhammadu Buhari has been re-elected for a second four-year term as president of Nigeria - Africa's most populous nation, which faces a range of problems including corruption, an economic slowdown and security threats. BBC Africa Editor Fergal Keane examines the challenges. | This was never an election that promised the possibility of a new era. The 76-year-old president and his defeated rival, Atiku Abubakar, 72, have been around the Nigerian political scene for decades and represent two parties often associated with cronyism and corruption.
Indeed Mr Buhari's victory may in part have to do with public mistrust of his opponent who had to reject allegations of corruption during the campaign.
The president did make some efforts in his first term to counter the graft which has seen tens of billions drain out of the exchequer.
His personal financial integrity has never been questioned. But he has been widely criticised for not going fast or far enough. Will he be more vigorous in his second term?
'Baba Go Slow'
A dose of realism is needed: the breadth and depth of corruption is so great, it affects so many aspects of public life that making serious inroads into the problem would require a focus, energy and application that was lacking in President Buhari's first term.
His absence from the country for long periods due to ill-health - he sought treatment in London for a still undisclosed illness - gave the impression of an administration that often crawled rather than strode.
President Buhari has been lucky in his choice of deputy.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo showed himself to be dynamic and brave when he stood in as acting president, notably reining in the security services and acting to stabilise the naira, the local currency, at a time of deep economic uncertainty.
By contrast Mr Buhari has been nicknamed "Baba Go Slow". It took him six months to appoint his cabinet first time around.
More on Nigeria's vote
Can he end looting?
The second problem he faces in fighting corruption is having the necessary political support.
There is undoubted public backing but Mr Buhari's party is compromised by senior members suspected of enriching themselves through graft. The fear is that across the board the looters will carry on pretty much as normal, undermining economic development.
Determined disciplinarian
Economically, the country remains dependent on oil prices for 70% of government revenues - a long-term vulnerability that helped pull Nigeria into recession between 2016-17.
The World Bank has predicted sluggish economic growth: 2.2% for the coming year in a country with unemployment of more than 20% and nearly half the population living in extreme poverty.
Ending the dependency on oil revenues needs to happen at a much faster pace.
President Buhari also faces an array of security threats from clashes between farmers and herdsmen in the Middle Belt, continuing instability in the oil-producing Niger Delta and - most worrying of all - a revived threat from Islamist extremists in the north of the country.
There, the Boko Haram offshoot - Islamic State West Africa Provice (ISWAP) - used the elections period to stage a series of high-profile attacks including an attempt to fire rockets into the city of Maiduguri on polling day.
Militant muscle
Low turnout concern
For a president at the height of his powers these would be a formidable array of challenges. But Mr Buhari is in his seventies with a history of health problems.
It may be that he is rejuvenated by victory and his second term is more dynamic than the first.
If not the danger is that Nigeria succumbs to the politics of drift with growing frustration among the young who make up more than half the population.
For faith in democracy to endure those elected need to be seen to bringing tangible gains.
This might - at least partially - explain why voter turnout was a record low of just under 35%, down from 44% in 2015.
This is the statistic that should worry all political parties in Nigeria.
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People in rich countries are getting older. But is a longer life always a better life? In the first of a series about the ageing population, Smitha Mundasad looks at whether we can influence the rate at which we age.
| At 95 years old, Olga Kotelko could be forgiven for sitting on the sidelines as people 60 years her junior jump over poles and hurl javelins into the distance.
But this sprightly 5ft-tall Canadian joins in - in a big way.
This year she became the oldest recorded female indoor sprinter, high jumper, long jumper and triple jumper at the World Masters Athletics Championships.
Olga now has more than 30 world records to her name and has won more than 750 gold medals.
But she says she sees herself as nothing special, describing herself as just a plain Jane.
Olga took to the athletics track at the age of 77.
As one of 11 siblings brought up on a farm, she has always been active - there were always cows to milk and chores to be done.
She has now outlived all her siblings and most of her friends but when asked what her secret is, she says there isn't one.
"I think your age is just a number. It's not your birthday, it's how you age which makes the difference.
"It's your attitude to all the things that happen in your life that plays the biggest part."
Extra time
So is it really in our gift to transform ourselves into nonagenarian superheroes? Or are we much more likely to face a grim process of decline and decay?
For people living in wealthy countries, there is some cheering news.
Data from Newcastle University suggests that as every 24 hours pass, on average we add an extra five hours to our lives - that's over 2 months each year and at least two years more per decade - due partly to improving living conditions and medical advances.
And in the UK the number of people who are living into their 100th year has nearly quadrupled since the 1980s, meaning nearly one in five people in the UK will now live to see their 100th birthday.
So ageing is not an immovable beast - at least to some extent.
While Olga's genes might help her, we are not all prisoner to our own. Research increasingly suggests that for most of us the genetic hand we are dealt at birth account for only a quarter of what determines how long we live.
This means 75% of our later lives could be down to the lifestyle we choose to lead.
And while the well-known prescription of a good diet and regular exercise is key - there are other less well-known things that help people to live healthier lives in old age.
Eight lesser-known effects of ageing
Dr Lynne Corner of Newcastle University says while getting chronologically older is inevitable, declining with age doesn't have to be.
"The truth is there is no simple way or single answer to ageing well. It really is a complex combination of lifestyle factors and of course good diet and exercise."
Scientists hope to find more clues to the elixir of long life by closely observing Japan.
With the highest proportion of elderly citizens in the world, the country is often held up as the poster boy of healthy ageing.
"Broadly speaking unpicking the Japanese lifestyle - a diet with plenty of fish and vegetables, a focus on yoga and other strengthening exercises, less smoking and drinking than the Western world - seems to do the trick," Prof Corner says.
Friends against frailty
It is also becoming increasingly obvious that the younger you are when you take on this healthy life, the better your odds in later years.
But there are other things that work too.
Dr Carol Holland, director of Aston University's research centre for healthy ageing, says one of the most surprising findings in recent years is that time spent with friends has a huge impact on ageing well.
And nurturing friendships in mid-life may offer some protection against frailty in old age.
Dr Holland says: "More and more research on ageing shows the more friends you have when you are 50-60 years old, the less likely you are to be isolated in later life. And the less isolated you are, the less likely you are to be frail as the years go by. "
And one of England's largest studies on ageing found that people who were socially isolated were less likely to survive over a period of seven years than those with good social networks.
There may be many reasons behind this - friends may notice warning signs of ill health and persuade their companions to seek help.
And the simple act of being sociable may involve people in more activity-based pursuits than those who have no social contacts.
But Prof Andrew Steptoe of University College London who was involved in the research says there may even be a more direct relationship with the biology of the human body and isolation which we don't yet fully understand.
And the type of social contact might count too. When it comes to preventing depression studies suggest time with friends matters even more than time spent with family.
As Olga readily attests, just thinking differently could also have a big impact.
In research from Yale University, Dr Becca Levy found older people with positive views of ageing tended to live longer than individuals with negative beliefs.
Data from 9,000 people in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing suggests that those who reported the most enjoyment of life live longer - even after accounting for health and wealth.
Thinking time
People often fear that their memories will inevitably get worse with age, but Prof Ian Deary of Edinburgh University who has spent years studying the normal ageing brain, says that is not always the case.
Some parts of our memory can get better with age - our memory banks for general knowledge and vocabulary can improve over time.
Prof Deary says: "So, on average in old age, be prepared to know more than younger people, but not to be as fast in working out new stuff quickly."
And Dr Corner says though many younger people tend to worry that old age is about decline and dependence research in the UK simply doesn't show that - the majority of older people are living happy, independent lives.
In a recent Newcastle University study of 85-year-olds, the majority rated their health as ''good to excellent'' - despite having at least three medical conditions and taking 10 different pills a day.
Prof James Goodwin, head of research at the charity Age UK, says: "This really highlights the way we think about old age is changing significantly.
"Lots of people over 85 are telling us that despite their chronic conditions they are still able to see their families and friends and life is fine."
Even England's official statisticians suggest we are happiest between the ages of 65 and 80.
But in Olga's tenth decade she says there's no stopping her.
"There's no limit. Who says you are supposed to stop at a certain point?
"I just want to keep on going until I drop. I guess that's when I'll have to stop."
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An 8ft (2.4m) snake, believed to be a boa constrictor, is on the loose in a Lancashire town. | Lancashire Police said the snake was reported missing by its owners in Skelmersdale at 09:30 BST on Tuesday.
Insp Mark Porter said: "While we do not believe the snake is aggressive or would attack anybody there is the potential for risk to small children or pets from the animal seeking warmth."
Experts have told police the snake may have found somewhere to sleep.
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Manmohan Singh was one of India's longest serving prime ministers and widely regarded as the architect of the country's economic reforms. But critics say a new Bollywood biopic months before a general election reduces him to a caricature. Sudha G Tilak reports. | In The Accidental Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh sits in a garishly decorated office. He looks befuddled when he takes orders from Sonia Gandhi, then president of the Congress party which was in power at the time.
The film, critics say, could have been an engaging exploration of the career of one of India's most enigmatic leaders.
Instead, many see it as a hatchet job on Mr Singh and Congress. One called it a "bad propaganda film".
According to veteran Bollywood actor Anupam Kher, who plays Mr Singh, the filmmakers "worked hard to make a big epic homage to a man, scholar and politician, who is misunderstood, or rather hardly understood".
That evaluation of Mr Singh as barely understood isn't wide of the mark.
But few agree the film, based on the memoirs of Mr Singh's media adviser Sanjaya Baru, does him justice.
Mr Singh - who is now 86 - served two terms as PM from 2004-2014. A former academic and bureaucrat, he kept a low profile and rarely gave interviews.
His surprise appointment capped a long and illustrious career - a master's degree at Cambridge University and a DPhil in Oxford; stints with the UN and Asian Development Bank; chief of India's central bank; and finance minister.
But oratory and political savvy were never his strong points. In fact he never had to win an election - he was a member of India's upper house of parliament, whose members are elected indirectly.
Many believe that in the end, Mr Singh was undermined by his own party.
The film is so-named because he was catapulted into the PM's job in 2004 when Sonia Gandhi turned down the post, despite having won the election. She did so apparently to protect the party from damaging attacks over her Italian origin.
But Mr Singh was never able to fully shake off the perception that it was Mrs Gandhi who was in charge, not him.
Mr Baru wrote in his memoirs that the famous "Delhi diarchy" - Mr Singh running the government and Mrs Gandhi managing the party - failed during the government's second term, and stifled Mr Singh's independence.
Although he earned a reputation as a man of great personal integrity, Mr Singh's second term was marred by a string of corruption scandals. That, say many, was partially responsible for the crushing electoral defeat by the BJP in 2014.
It's not that the biopic doesn't appear to hold promise. It has a brisk, documentary-like feel and it has drawn audiences.
But unimpressed critics have been lining up to pan it.
One found the film "shockingly bad and shoddy… There is a complete absence of any art or craft in its making".
Another wrote that Singh is "portrayed as a spineless cry-baby and his many achievements as prime minister go unacknowledged, except for the Indo-US nuclear deal".
Columnist Vir Sanghvi wrote that the film is a "convenient peg on which to hang the anti-Congress narrative which was already current when Manmohan Singh was the PM".
Critic Shubhra Gupta agreed, saying it was no accident the film was out now, with polls "around the corner".
Even some Sikh leaders have had a go - Mr Singh, after all, was the first Sikh to hold the country's top post. One community leader spoke out against the "facetious portrayal" of a prime minister who made the "community and the country proud".
BJP leader RP Singh then defended the depiction, saying Mr Singh never really took a stand for the community.
Political biopics are rare in India and its politicians rarely countenance candid portrayals: a film critical of the Emergency, imposed by Mr Singh's party in 1975, was banned for example.
The strongest defence of The Accidental Prime Minister has come from Akshaye Khanna, who plays the pivotal role of journalist-turned-media adviser Sanjaya Baru.
"If you make an authentic political film, which talks of real people and real events, in a politically conscious country like India, it is but natural that people will react to it in different ways and there will be a collage of opinions.
"That's to be expected and if it didn't happen, I would have been disappointed," he said in an interview. "But at the end of the day, it's just a film, not an earthquake or a tsunami, so let us not get too carried away."
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It's early, early days. But so far there will be grimaces at Labour HQ, beaming smiles at the Tory's CCHQ, and a slightly frazzled atmosphere at Lib Dem homes this morning - and don't be surprised if you see Nigel Farage at his favourite boozer by lunchtime. | Laura KuenssbergPolitical editor@bbclaurakon Twitter
There are lots and lots of results still to come in.
But with a general election only a month away, this barometer of real votes looks grim for the Labour Party.
Senior sources say that it is national share that will matter, and they want to compare it with the election in 2015.
But it is more accurate to look at the last time these seats were fought, which was in 2013.
In comparison with that, Labour is so far falling back badly, despite holding on in some parts of Wales.
And we've just seen the first big blast at the Labour leadership from Stephen Kinnock, calling the picture "disastrous", and urging voters to do what I expect we'll hear other candidates do repeatedly in the next few weeks - making a pitch for a strong opposition, rather than Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister.
The victims in most pain so far from voters' decisions yesterday are UKIP.
Their vote has been collapsing, with, it seems, swathes switching straight over to the Tories.
That is a political trick that Theresa May wants to repeat around the country in a few weeks' time.
UPDATE:
A senior Labour figure has just described the party's local election results as "catastrophic".
As the counts continue, this set of results is proving to be very disappointing for Jeremy Corbyn's party.
Officially the party is of course not as admitting as much, with sources suggesting in fact the result are not as bad as they had expected.
Yet another senior Labour politician, not one of Corbyn's prominent critics says, this is the "third time in a row we have gone backwards. There is no metric under which these results are not very bad."
I can't say enough that we need to be cautious about translating the results directly across to the General Election next month.
Yet they are a useful barometer of real votes, that set a depressing backdrop for Labour's prospects in June.
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The seabed off the Cumbria coast will be scoured for unexploded bombs as part of plans to double in size one of the world's largest offshore wind farms. | The Walney facility has 102 turbines and Danish owner Dong Energy intends to add 90 more.
Once completed, it will cover about 55 sq miles (145 sq km), Dong said.
Programme director Andrew Cotterell said the geophysical survey was "an important step before we can safely begin offshore construction".
Portsmouth marine environmental services company Fugro EMU will start surveying this month, Dong said.
The firm will be looking for any seabed obstructions, including unexploded World War Two ordnance.
The expanded wind farm is expected to be fully commissioned by 2019. It is one of four in the area.
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Voters go to the polls in Stoke-on-Trent Central on Thursday, 23 February to choose their next MP. | A by-election was triggered by the resignation of Labour Tristram Hunt, who had represented the seat since 2010.
Labour, which had a 5,179 majority in 2015, is fielding Gareth Snell as its candidate.
UKIP leader Paul Nuttall is running for his party, which came second last time around.
Polls open at 07:00 GMT and close at 22:00 GMT.
Here is a list of the candidates, in alphabetical order by surname:
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So the holidays are finally, definitely over. | By Fiona GrahamTechnology of business reporter, BBC News
Cast away the post-return to work gloom and cheer yourself in front of the white heat of technology predictions by our experts, in the second part of the annual Technology of business lookahead.
Personalisation, data breaches, the internet of things, citizen coders and smart car parks are a few of the trends we've got to look forward to.
Although you probably want to change your password. Everywhere.
You can catch up on part one here.
Stephen Prentice, vice president and fellow, Gartner
2014 saw an explosion of connected devices as smartphones and tablets gave way to a proliferation of wearable devices and the growing internet of things burst into prominence.
But even as some individuals appear to live their life in the digital world of social media and online everything, more than one in seven of the UK population have yet to go online at all.
As William Gibson commented, "the future is already here, it's just not very evenly distributed."
We love our devices, but the next few years will see rising numbers of "invisible" wearable devices, from contact lenses to clothing, jewellery to ingestible smart pills.
Technology is giving devices a digital voice, and they will be talking about us - what we eat, where we are, how far we walk, how fast our hearts beat - which taken in their entirety, with a judicious application of cloud services and pervasive analytics, will reveal our most intimate details.
Forget your concerns over the security of online transactions, or revealing too much on Facebook - the "system" knows and we are become data!
Computing will be everywhere, in the cloud, in smart factories, in our cars and our homes, in drones overhead and the city beneath our feet.
Smart machines will digest big data with advanced analytics and become ever more involved in the material decisions which affect our everyday lives. "The Computer says No!" will become reality rather than a running joke.
Like it or not, we need to start learning to live alongside our new, smarter, digital "friend".
The growth of the sharing economy, this harnesses the power of the social, local and mobile web to allow people to share their assets.
From cars to cleaners, driveways to dogs and hotel rooms to handbags, all can be rented by the hour.
Companies like AirBnB, ZipCar, Task Rabbit and the now notorious Uber are all starting to gain in popularity with consumers.
The "ego system" (as Brian Solis puts it) will become more prolific as more products, services and experiences are tailored to our individual preferences.
This trend is being fuelled by the vapour trail of data that we leave behind us, geolocation technologies, the rise of big data analytics and the ability to create mass-customised products and services at lower cost.
The rise of voice. It's good to talk, apparently, but our interaction with technologies has been largely through our fingers until now.
For wearable technologies to work effectively, we need new ways of interacting with these devices and voice will be the primary candidate.
"Omni-channel" service will become more than marketing hype.
Autonomous, social, app and mobile consumers are using more and more channels to contact organisations and, finally, organisations are starting to respond to this in a far more connected and co-ordinated way.
Baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers.
The youngest baby boomers reach 50 this year and the oldest are starting to retire in their hundreds of thousands, leaving a skills gap in many key professions and an economic time-bomb that stretches from pensions to productivity.
This year we've seen an unprecedented shopping frenzy around the Christmas period, with massive surges in online buying.
What's become apparent is that our existing infrastructure is not up to speed.
The convenience of online shopping has become a victim of its own success, so next year I think we'll see massive changes.
Firstly, retailers will need to closely examine the backbones of their websites and apps to make sure they have the capacity to meet peak demand, while also protecting transaction and customer information (avoiding Target and Home Depot-style cyber-attacks).
Secondly, search becomes super-powered.
The internet had made shopping cheaper - but we expect more, a better experience.
New technologies will make it easier to combine information about our preferences, purchases and search history, the time of year, the weather, general buying patterns - and deliver personalised, accurate results in split seconds.
Finally, we'll see the physical shopping experience become more digitally-enabled.
Think high street stores with beacon technology that identifies when you're in the shop and gives you information on special offers based on what you've bought before, or even are likely to be interested in.
At the checkout, there'll be no need to get cash or cards out, because you will pay with your mobile phone, or watch for that matter.
2014 has really been the year of code, as computer programming gained widespread attention - even David Cameron tried his hand at it during the Hour of Code in early December.
In 2015 we will see the rise of the citizen coder as more people recognise that app development isn't just for professional programmers anymore.
Spurred on by easy-to-use development platforms we'll see more individuals and businesses creating their own bespoke apps particularly for mobile devices.
The stage is set for wearable technology to become one of the hottest trends of 2015, following the high-profile launches of devices including the iWatch and Will.I.am's Puls adding to more familiar wearables such as FitBit and Jawbone.
I think we'll see increased uptake of wearables in 2015 as this technology makes the leap from the consumer to the business world, and becomes more industrialised in feature and function.
Some are calling 2014 the year of the data breach. Unfortunately, we can expect 2015 to be worse for companies as well as consumers.
People have long believed tighter controls will slow employees down and make them less productive, and the tendency has been to invest in stronger security after you've suffered an embarrassing public breach.
In 2015, more institutions will implement automated preventive and detective controls around their data.
The Sony Pictures data breach in December brought some sunlight to an aspect of companies' vulnerability that has never received the attention it deserves, the need to protect data itself instead of just obsessing over how cybercriminals enter companies to begin with.
A lot of good can come from this unfortunate episode if organisations take the right lessons from it.
Think of it this way: a thief breaks into a bank, and when he gets inside he finds the vault door was left open, there's no security guard on duty and no camera recording video of who's walking out with money.
That's essentially what happened to Sony Pictures and so much of its confidential data, but they shouldn't be singled out.
Most organisations today are candidates for the same kind of crime.
It's understandable how we got here - technology that was introduced to make it easier to create and share data took off.
But not much time was spent thinking about what would happen ten or 15 years after it took off, when the data volumes became terabytes and petabytes and we all grew so dependent on it.
And now, we're facing the consequences.
Next year the internet of things will enter the mainstream.
And by the mainstream, I mean the car park, that most mundane of environments.
Car parks that guide you to the nearest space, automate payment, save you time and headaches, and make the entire operation more efficient, will start popping up all over the country.
As with car parks, so with cars - fitted with sensors and connected to the internet or other networks wirelessly or via smartphones and other mobile devices.
Such 'smart' cars can tell you where you are and how well you're driving. Some are smart enough to drive themselves - even find you a car park and park in it.
The increased use of data in the delivery of personalised treatment plans brings increased security risks, and the IDC predicts healthcare organisations will typically have experienced between one and five cyber-attacks by the end of the year.
Health tech suppliers will be pressured into providing robust data security commitments, and we are likely to see an increase in risk sharing, consequently growing the cyber insurance market and litigation surrounding the area.
Clear and robust contracts with a fair allocation of risk will be key to medicating the situation and protecting suppliers in the sector.
Follow Fiona Graham on Twitter at @FionaGraham
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Something extraordinary happened during Prime Minister's Questions today.
| David CornockParliamentary correspondent, Wales
David Cameron was asked a question about the NHS in England and forgot to mention Wales in his reply.
Labour's Natascha Engel complained there were too few GPs and it was no surprise people couldn't get an appointment.
David Cameron said the coalition had increased spending on the NHS, which now had 7,000 more doctors. No cross-border comparison with Wales, prime minister?
I thought initially I had been mistaken and, despite years of training, missed the Welsh angle. But then it happened again, in response to a question about hospital closures from Labour MP Nick Raynsford.
David Cameron said that poor service had to be turned around. He added that the average wait in A and E used to be 77 minutes (under Labour) but was now 30 minutes. Again, no mention of life west of Offa's Dyke.
Labour former cabinet minister Nick Brown had a go, asking about the causes of a projected £2bn deficit for English NHS trusts next year.
Mr Cameron told him the forecasts included efficiency targets - which had been met. After 17 minutes, and three questions about the NHS in England, he prime minister could resist the temptation no longer:
"The great question for the NHS in British politics today, I would argue, is why is it in Wales where Labour are under control (sic) where 8 % cuts have been made in the NHS budget."
Cue mock yawning from Labour MPs.
The prime minister had a final go: "Well, they might be yawning opposite, they're not yawning in Wales because they're stuck on waiting lists waiting for treatment."
The Cameron attacks on Welsh NHS performance have become so routine they are less and less newsworthy. Perhaps the prime minister should change his routine first answer at question time to something along these lines "This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today. I shall also be having a go at the Welsh Labour government's handling of the NHS."
It would at least save time.
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An outbreak of a sickness bug has had an impact on planned surgery and added pressure on Wrexham Maelor Hospital's emergency unit, bosses have said. | People were admitted with diarrhoea and vomiting over the weekend and some have been confirmed as cases of norovirus.
Managers have stopped the admission of patients into rooms where people have the illness to stop it from spreading.
They said that move has slowed admissions from the emergency unit into the wider hospital.
Admissions to four wards have been stopped as a precautionary measure, Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board said.
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A police helicopter crew witnessed a marriage proposal after seeing the words "will you marry me?" spelt out in a north-west London park. | The officers were searching for a stolen car when they saw the pair, one of whom was on bended knee, on Saturday evening in Gladstone Park, Dollis Hill.
The crew saw the proposal take place but did not know what the answer was.
The MPSinthesky Twitter account tweeted: "We think we have just seen the most romantic guy in north London."
Images of the pair were shared with the account's 95,500 followers and the officers tweeted if anyone knew the engaged couple they had some great photos to share with them.
Officers believe the message had been spelt out using lit candles to stand out against the night sky.
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A freak hurricane, debilitating seasickness, encounters with whales and sharks and the loss of a rudder. Those were just some of the challenges faced by four Antiguan men who returned to a heroes' welcome after becoming the oldest team to ever row across the Atlantic. | By Gemma HandyEnglish Harbour, Antigua
The intrepid quartet were greeted by a flotilla and thousands of well-wishers brandishing national flags, blowing conch horns and whistles as they made their entry into Nelson's Dockyard on Antigua's south coast on Wednesday, bringing their gruelling 3,000 nautical mile journey to a close.
The feat is a double world record for one of the men - 74-year-old sailor Peter Smith. He became the oldest person to complete what is dubbed the world's toughest rowing race.
Team Wadadli claimed 14th place out of 26 boats taking part in the annual Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge, which set off from the Canary Islands on December 21.
Headed by captain Dr Nick Fuller, a 67-year-old GP, the foursome also included professional seamen Archie Bailey, 50, and John Hall, 29.
Around halfway through their 52-day adventure, the team battled Hurricane Alex - the first Atlantic tropical cyclone to form in January in 78 years - in their 8.64 metre (28ft) boat Wa'omoni, setting them back nine nautical miles.
Mr Smith described the 10 metre (33ft) waves as "pretty horrific". They forced the men to abandon their oars and confine themselves to the tiny cabin.
"In a boat that small the noise was tremendous," he told the BBC, "and it felt endless. We couldn't lie down in our bunks - we were bouncing up and down like ping pong balls."
Mr Smith, originally from Penzance, Cornwall, continued: "It feels terrific to have broken the record. I've sailed across the Atlantic three times so I knew what to expect but this was a real challenge - particularly at my age.
"It's a long time to be at sea. There was a lot of hardship, both on the water and the boat itself as it's very small and very bouncy; in 52 days we were never once still."
Mr Smith's wife Elizabeth said she thought her husband was joking when he announced his intention to take part.
"I didn't think he was serious. And then I thought he was crazy.
"I am a sailor myself and sailing across oceans in a boat designed precisely for that is one thing; I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it in a rowing boat."
She added: "It wasn't until we were flying round and round in a helicopter looking for them when they were 20 miles from the finishing line that you really see quite how small and vulnerable they are."
After just 14 days at sea, Wa'omoni lost her steering, meaning the men were forced to steer manually for the remainder of the journey. Christmas was another arduous time with Mr Hall suffering intense seasickness and Dr Fuller struck down with flu.
The team also related tales of passing pilot whales, sharks and marlin - and a breathtaking display by a pod of dolphins.
Age may not have been on the team's side but maritime experience was. While other competitors were forced to subsist solely on freeze-dried food, the Antiguans - all keen fishermen - supplemented theirs with freshly caught mahi mahi and tuna.
Still, the punishing regime saw the men shed a collective 60 pounds (27 kg) in weight - almost half by Dr Fuller alone.
In addition to a thunderous reception from supporters and dignitaries, a steak meal awaited the rowers upon their arrival shortly after lunchtime on February 10.
Surveying the throng who had turned out to welcome them home, a beaming Dr Fuller said: "Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would end like this. It started out as a personal endeavour; I was 66 and thought if I don't do it now, it will never happen."
There was laughter from onlookers as he recalled his struggle to gather a willing team together. The resulting four are long-time friends and seafaring associates.
"The conditions were difficult and we'd been advised we would hit rock bottom at times but there was not a word of anger between us. It feels incredible to have done it," Dr Fuller added.
The family physician credited the remarkable accomplishment to 20% physical strength and 80% willpower.
At the time of signing up for the race he joked he had "no muscles and little physical ability."
Team Wadadli raised more than $80,000 (£55,000) for a local cause, St John's Hospice.
Tourism Minister Asot Michael paid tribute to an "historic display of courage and tenacity, endurance and determination."
Prime Minister Gaston Browne said: "They have brought international attention to Antigua & Barbuda - and pride to this country."
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It's taken almost two weeks, but most of the dust has finally settled from the 2018 mid-term elections. What initially appeared to be a mixed picture for Donald Trump and the Republicans has grown darker - but there is a Sunshine State silver lining. | Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter
On the morning after polling, Mr Trump said the results showed almost a "complete victory".
Even at the time that was difficult to square with the reality that his party had lost control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years.
There was the prospect that the Republicans were going to make historic gains in the Senate, however. The president boasted of the possibility of a four-seat pick-up - which would build the largest majority for his party in more than a century.
Such a historic win was not to be.
Here's a look at some of the most significant developments since the first round of election-night instant analyses, many of which were written when it was challenging to spot the Democratic wave among the evening's early returns.
Orange (County) is the new blue
It became clear near midnight on election day that Democrats would take control of the House of Representatives. The only question was the size of their majority.
Much of that depended on the outcome of very close races and the slow trickle of results from California mail-in balloting. What could have been only a tenuous Democratic hold on power has slowly grown to a more robust advantage - and California is a big reason why.
In Orange County, the heavily populated suburbs south of Los Angeles, Republicans were routed. What used to be the backbone of conservatism in the state - the home of Richard Nixon, a place Ronald Reagan once referred to as "Republican heaven" - turned Democratic blue.
Four Republican-held districts in the county fell, marking the first time since 1940 that all seven of its House seats will be represented by Democrats.
Add another two seats that have been called for the Democrats elsewhere in California and one that appears poised to go blue, and there could be only seven Republicans left in the state's 53-seat congressional delegation. There's still plenty of Republican red on the California map, but it's all in the relatively unpopulated eastern portion of the state. Most Californians live on the coast.
In fact, except for a small Republican-held slice of southern Washington, the entire Pacific coast of the continental US will now be represented in the House by Democrats.
Orange County was expected to be a battleground in 2018.
Democrat Hillary Clinton beat Mr Trump throughout the area in 2016, and the president remains largely unpopular there. The scope of the rout, however, was remarkable.
Combined with post-election-day victories for Democrats in New Jersey, Washington, Georgia and Maine (and more on that in a minute), the Democratic House majority will have at least a 14-seat cushion with five races left to be decided.
Although the size of the victory in terms of seats is dwarfed by the Republican waves of 2010 and 1994, it is the largest Democratic House gain since the post-Watergate election of 1974.
A more modest Senate swing
If the House results were good news for the Democrats, the Senate appeared to be another story. Midway through election night, a flurry of embattled Democratic Senate incumbents were toppled.
Joe Donnelly, despite pre-election polls showing he might hang on to his seat in conservative Indiana, was quickly defeated.
Claire McCaskill, who seemed to be living a charmed political life, saw her luck run out in Missouri.
Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, a state that Mr Trump won by more than 30% in 2016, was buried.
Yes, Democratic incumbents won surprisingly easy victories in Trump-carried states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and across the Midwest, but the losses were mounting.
Later in the evening, it became clear that Democrats would pick up a seat in Nevada - beating the one Republican running in a state Mrs Clinton carried - but it still seemed like the Republicans were on a roll.
Instead, Democrats stopped the bleeding. Jon Tester held on in Montana, another very Trump-friendly state. And Kyrsten Sinema defeated Martha McSally to pick up a Republican-held seat in Arizona.
After a week of recounting battles, Rick Scott upended Democratic Senator Bill Nelson in Florida, which - along with governor wins in Georgia and Florida - gave Mr Trump a bit of late good news.
It's hard to over-estimate the value of Florida to the president - some might say it's his real home.
There's still a Mississippi run-off scheduled in a week, but the chances are that the Republicans will hold that seat.
Add in the Democratic win in an Alabama special election last year, and Trump will probably enter the second half of his first term with one more seat in the Senate than he had when he started, 53 to 47.
It provides a bit of breathing room for his party, but it also means the chamber is decidedly in play in 2020, when more Republicans will have to defend their seats in battleground states.
Mr Trump, in a Friday tweet, called his party's two-seat gain in the Senate an "epic victory" and downplayed the Democratic pickup in the Senate.
The Senate gains are indeed somewhat rare for a president, although that has much more to do with the idiosyncrasies of the 2018 seats up for election than larger trends.
As FiveThirtyEight's Geoffrey Skelley explains, in state after state Democratic Senate candidates in 2018 outperformed the "partisan lean" (compared to the national average) of the states they were running in.
Meanwhile, in the House, only five of the last 15 mid-terms had larger gains for the out-of-power party.
If this was an epic victory, Republicans probably shudder when thinking what defeat might have looked like.
Mia gets love from voters, not Trump
One of the more unusual portions of Mr Trump's post-election press conference was when he began listing names of Republican candidates he felt had not adequately supported him - and went on to lose.
"I'm not sure that I should be happy or sad, but I feel just fine about it," he said.
Carlos Curbelo of Florida, Mike Coffman in Colorado, Barbara Comstock in Virginia and Illinois' Peter Roskam. None of them wanted the Trump "embrace", the president said, and all paid the price.
"Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost," he noted of the only black Republican congresswoman, who was trailing her opponent on election night. "Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia."
The thing is, Ms Love, running for re-election, is in a back-and-forth fight for her northern Utah seat. Since the president's remarks, she pulled ahead by more than 1,000 votes and is currently trailing by around 700.
Victory is far from assured, but it's going to be close.
21 NOV UPDATE:
In final tabulations, Democrat Ben McAdams defeated Ms Love by 694 votes. The Democrats pick up another House seat, and Trump gets a bit of costly vindication."
And one for the political nerds... Maine
As mentioned, that Maine election was a bit unusual. The Second Congressional District race was the first test of the state's new "ranked choice" voting system. Because of it, a Democrat unseated an incumbent Republican who would have been re-elected under the old system.
When Maine residents headed to the polls two weeks ago, they voted for their first choice - and then marked who their second preference would be if their first pick didn't end up in the top two and no one received a majority of the vote.
On election day, Republican Bruce Poliquin received 46.2% of the vote, while Democrat Jared Golden tallied 45.5%. After the second choices of those who opted for independent and third-party candidates were tabulated last Thursday, however, Mr Golden pulled ahead and won the seat.
"Instant runoff" systems like this have been cited by electoral reform advocates as a means to avoid third-party spoiler candidates and ensure that elected officials enter office with a majority of support.
The Republican is already challenging the legality of the process, but if it's upheld, other states may give the system a look.
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Elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) will be held across England and Wales, including the Dyfed-Powys force area, on 6 May 2021. | PCCs are elected representatives who work to ensure police forces are run effectively and efficiently.
They replaced police authorities in 2012 and are intended to bring a public voice to policing.
PCC elections are supposed to be held every four years but were postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic
Here is the list of candidates for Dyfed-Powys, in alphabetical order by surname:
A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections
Who can I vote for in my area?
Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster'
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Pope Francis is the fourth pontiff to visit the US, but he'll perform the first canonisation ever on US soil. So was 18th Century missionary Junipero Serra a champion of Catholicism or a brutal instrument of colonisation? | Born in 1713 on the Spanish island of Mallorca, Serra was a Franciscan friar who spent much of his life spreading the Catholic faith in the western part of what is today the United States. It was his work there that has generated controversy.
While Serra enjoys popularity among many and was beatified by John Paul II in 1988, the missionary remains highly controversial with some groups, especially Native Americans in California.
They claim that Serra was instrumental in the obliteration of indigenous populations, as well as several human rights abuses including enslavement.
Descendents of these original Californians have asked the Pope not to canonise the friar, claiming he acted more like a religious conqueror than a saint.
Still others say that Serra, like Pope Francis, was a champion of the poor and downtrodden, and that Christianity in much of California could be largely attributed to his work.
Marching aside the Spanish conquistadors, Serra established eight of the state's 21 missions. His proponents - including the Vatican - say that it was during this time he worked as a moderating force on the colonial conquerors and defended the rights of the Native Americans.
Despite the controversy, in January, the Pope announced that Serra would become a saint, after bypassing the standard requirement that two miracles could be attributed to the missionary.
Since then the Pope has worked to ameliorate some of the concerns. During a South American tour in July, Pope Francis apologised for the crimes committed against indigenous peoples at the hands of the church, but he did not mention Serra by name.
The canonisation is slated to take place in front of an audience of 25,000 people in Washington.
Notably, in a sign of the shifting demographics of the Catholic church in the Western Hemisphere, the Mass will be celebrated in Spanish.
Read a profile of Junipero Serra in Spanish (BBC Mundo)
Many of those in attendance will be Hispanic, which Washington's archbishop, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, said would give the Argentine-born pope a chance to pay homage to the contributions of Hispanics to the US and to the Catholic church.
At the Carmel mission in California, the site of Serra's death, as many as 400 worshippers are planning to watch the mass via video stream.
But at the same site, members of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation were planning a silent protest and prayer service for ancestors buried on the mission's grounds.
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A multi-billion-pounds order for new aircraft will sustain jobs for workers in Flintshire, plane-maker Airbus says. | The company signed a memorandum of understanding with American firm Air Lease Corp on Monday, for 25 of its re-vamped A330 models.
Air Lease also ordered 60 A321neo aircraft, in a deal worth $14.1bn (£8.2m) at the Farnborough Air Show.
The wings are made at Broughton and an Airbus spokesman said the orders were "good news" for the Flintshire plant.
The company said on Monday it had orders for 155 aircraft so far at the show.
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Dorset fishermen affected by the winter storms, are now able to apply for up to £5,000 to replace damaged equipment. | The Fishmongers Company Fund is being administered by the Dorset Community Foundation.
It follows criticism of an EU fund application process for fishermen which Dorset South MP Richard Drax called "a bureaucratic mess".
Commenting on news of the latest fund, he said that "any money the fishermen get is good news".
The Foundation said it would accept applications from Dorset fishermen "whose trade has been severely affected by storm damage" during the period 1 December to 31 March 2014.
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A last-ditch bid to save a factory which employs disabled workers in Aberdeen from closure has been made.
| Remploy in St Machar Road employs 15 workers, 14 of whom are disabled.
A case to develop a social enterprise hub in its place was recently rejected.
MPs Anne Begg and Frank Doran met Minister for Disabled People Esther McVey at Westminster for talks. Remploy earlier said it was planning to close 36 of its 54 factories.
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There's a town in West Virginia where there are tight restrictions on mobile signal, wifi and other parts of what most of us know as simply: modern life. It means Green Bank is a place unlike anywhere else in the world. But that could be set to change. | Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter
"Do you ever sit awake at night and wonder, what if?" I asked.
Mike Holstine's eyes twinkled like the stars he had spent his life's work observing.
"The universe is so huge," he began.
"On the off chance we do get that hugely lucky signal, when we look in the right place, at the right frequency. When we get that… can you imagine what that's going to do to humankind?"
WATCH MORE: See the full film on this week's edition of Click
Holstine is business manager at the Green Bank Observatory, the centrepiece of which is the colossal Green Bank Telescope. On a foggy Tuesday morning, I'm standing in the middle of it, looking up, feeling small.
Though the GBT has many research tasks, the one everyone talks about is the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. The GBT listens out for signs of communication or activity by species that are not from Earth.
And if aliens are aware of our giant ear to the galaxy, there could be no better advert for the beauty of our planet than the town of Green Bank.
Found in beautiful rural West Virginia, the town of 150 or so people is anchored by the GBT. The structure dominates the view over the countryside, but somehow does not seem to spoil it.
Unique people
I am not the first BBC reporter to pop in here. In fact, Green Bank is a source of constant fascination for journalists all over the world. Recently, several people in the town told me, a Japanese crew baffled everyone when it appeared to set up a game show-style challenge in the area.
Outsiders come here for two reasons. One, to marvel at the science. Two, to ogle at the unique people who have chosen to live here.
Green Bank sits at the heart of the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000 square mile (33,669 sq km) area where certain types of transmissions are restricted so as not to create interference to the variety of instruments set up in the hills - as well as the Green Bank Observatory, there is also Sugar Grove, a US intelligence agency outpost.
For those in the immediate vicinity of the GBT, the rules are more strict. Your mobile phone is useless here, you will not get a TV signal and you can't have strong wi-fi - though they admit this is a losing battle. Modern life is winning, gradually. And newer wi-fi standards do not interfere with the same frequencies as before.
But this relative digital isolation has meant that Green Bank has become a haven for those who feel they are quite literally allergic to electronic interference.
The condition is referred to as electromagnetic hypersensitivity disorder. Opinion is split on whether it is real, with the majority of medical opinion erring on the side that it is more psychological than physical.
But when I met with Diane Schou, one sufferer, I realised it did not matter whether the condition was "real" or not - for a growing number of people, modern technology has them feeling trapped.
The knock-on effects from the global recession have led to the Green Bank Telescope being on the chopping block.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is consulting right now on whether they can justify the expense of the telescope. To make things more precarious for Green Bank, other telescopes with similar abilities have been built in other parts of the world, including Chile.
The NSF is not going to just pull the rug from underneath the GBT. As it stands, funding is going to be gradually removed. Not a slow death, but rather a chance for Mr Holstine to court private investment money to keep the telescope operational.
It is working so far - the Breakthrough Listen project, backed with Silicon Valley money, is focused solely on finding other intelligent life. Over 10 years, its investors are planning to spend $100m (£80.3m) on the quest. They are using the GBT as part of an effort to survey the one million stars closest to Earth.
For the locals in Green Bank, the survival of the telescope is not just about seeking ET. It is also the largest employer in the entire county.
The big questions
When I asked Chuck and Heather Niday, who host a weekly show on the charming Allegheny Mountain Radio, whether the town would change if restrictions were lifted, they were reserved.
Sure, the kids would love access to Snapchat. But the fabric of the town would not be affected. It is a rural community and no amount of mobile phone signal will change the nature of this tight-knit town.
If like me you find it unfathomable that we are alone in the universe, then Green Bank is an utterly essential utility. When I asked Mr Holstine to justify the money the US government spends on the facility, he dug deep.
"How many of us have walked out into the night and looked up at the stars and stood there in wonder?
"We don't produce widgets. We don't produce something that you go to the store and buy. But we do produce education. We do produce research. We do produce answers to questions we haven't even asked ourselves yet.
"Those questions are the basis of what it means for us to be human. That constant search is done right here every day."
Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC and on Facebook.
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During his public appearance in May announcing the end of his special counsel inquiry, Robert Mueller said he didn't want or need to testify before Congress on the results of his investigation. | Anthony ZurcherNorth America reporter@awzurcheron Twitter
On Wednesday, it was clear why he felt that way.
The Justice Department publicly issued guidelines on Tuesday that set boundaries on Mr Mueller's testimony, instructing him to stay within the confines of the written report.
Mr Mueller said he would abide by this - echoing similar comments he made two months ago.
This virtually ensured that the former special counsel's testimony would not cover much new ground. Instead, Democrats had to pick and choose what episodes and findings they wanted to highlight, in the hopes that Mr Mueller would offer affirmation or further corroboration. He frequently did, but usually in the least dramatic fashion imaginable.
His answer to a question about the president asking White House staff to falsify documents relevant to the investigation, for instance, was simply: "I would say that's generally a summary".
'I'll refer you to the report'
The Justice Department ground rules all but guaranteed that Mr Mueller's testimony would be awkward and halting, as he repeatedly paused to refer to specific pages of the report.
Mr Mueller's responses were peppered with lines like: "I can't answer that question"; "I can't get into that"; "I don't recall"; "that's out of my purview"; and "I'll refer you to the report". That he frequently made them while leaning away from his microphone to look at his papers made things only more awkward to watch.
In addition, Mueller at times seemed all of his 74 years of age - a step behind the congressional questioners, who had clearly rehearsed for their five minutes apiece in the spotlight. As both Republicans and Democrats furiously tried to shape the public's view of the report, Mueller frequently had the look of a man in the middle of a busy intersection, trying not to get hit by cars.
At the beginning of the afternoon hearing, Mr Mueller even had to go back and correct an earlier answer about why he did not indict the president for obstruction of justice.
This hearing was always going to feature a fair amount of grandstanding by the politicians in the room - such behaviour is hardwired into their DNA. Partisan grandstanding tends to only confirm the existing views of those who watch, however.
If undecided Americans were hoping for definitive statements from Mr Mueller - or even relatively clear or coherent soundbites from the former special counsel - they were few and far between.
The man 'not watching'
Donald Trump insisted that he wasn't going to watch the Mueller hearing - and his legal team insisted their reaction to the whole proceedings would be a collective shrug.
As is often the case, however, Mr Trump's Twitter feed tells a different story.
He tweeted eight times about the Mueller investigation on Tuesday morning before the hearings began, including his old chestnut "No collusion, no obstruction!"
He also challenged Mr Mueller to say under oath that he did not "apply" to be the president's selection to replace fired FBI Director James Comey. Mr Mueller did not hesitate to contradict Mr Trump, saying instead that he had met the president to talk about the attributes a new director should have.
Since the hearings began, the president has retweeted or quoted conservatives who have praised Republicans on the committee or criticised Democrats and Mr Mueller, including citing Fox's Chris Wallace, who called it "a disaster for the Democrats and a disaster for the reputation of Robert Mueller".
It certainly hasn't been a great day for the Democrats in Congress who were hoping Mr Mueller's testimony might fuel calls for formal presidential impeachment hearings. If anything, it will probably play into hands of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has tried to tamp down the impeachment drive, instead opting for a slow and steady congressional investigatory approach.
Mr Mueller's appearance had been long awaited and much anticipated, but although it arrived with considerable fanfare, the US political landscape is almost certain to look the same the day after these hearings as it was the day before.
Far from a 'total exoneration'
A key moment for Democrats came early in Mr Mueller's testimony, when Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler directly asked him if his report was a "total exoneration" of the president, as Mr Trump has insisted.
"No," was Mr Mueller's short and direct answer.
Mr Mueller confirmed that he believed Justice Department rules prevented the special counsel from indicting a sitting president for any criminal acts. What's more, Mr Mueller also confirmed that he had repeatedly tried to interview Mr Trump about the instances of possible obstruction - that it was vital to the investigation and in the public interest - but Mr Trump had refused.
Democrats have fought hard against the early characterisation of the Mueller report by Attorney General William Barr that there was insufficient evidence to find Mr Trump had obstructed justice. Mr Mueller confirmed that he believed he could make no such determination one way or another - although his report had stated that if Mr Trump had been exonerated, it would have said so.
This wasn't new information, of course, but it was helpful for Democrats to get Mr Mueller to say it in person once again, on wall-to-wall national television coverage.
A president 'below the law'
If Democrats found it outrageous that the special counsel investigation couldn't exonerate Mr Trump of criminal obstruction of justice, Republicans were outraged as well - but for an entirely different reason.
In one of the more dramatic portions of Mr Mueller's testimony, Republican John Ratcliffe of Texas pressed Mr Mueller to explain why his report pointedly said it would have cleared Mr Trump of obstruction if it had definitely concluded that was the case.
"Which [Department of Justice] policy or principle sets forth a legal standard that an investigated person is not exonerated if their innocence from criminal conduct is not conclusively determined?" Mr Ratcliffe asked.
Mr Mueller began to answer that the investigation of the president was a "unique situation", but the Texas congressman was having none of it - "respectfully", he repeatedly added.
"It was not the special counsel's job to conclusively determine Donald Trump's innocence or to exonerate him because the bedrock principle of our justice system is a presumption of innocence," he said.
The president isn't above the law, he continued, "but he damn sure shouldn't be below the law".
Mr Mueller's lack of a conclusion on presidential obstruction is one of the biggest open questions coming out of the special counsel's inquiry. The double-negative assertion that Mr Trump didn't definitely not commit an illegal act has been held up by Democrats as a big flashing sign pointing to what Mr Mueller secretly believes but felt he couldn't say - that the president should have been charged with a crime.
Mr Ratcliffe, and Republicans throughout the morning, made very clear they thought that was patently unfair.
A Russian attack, not a 'hoax'
While Mr Mueller's obstruction of justice investigation ended with a question mark, his inquiry into any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia concluded with a full-stop. There was insufficient evidence, he said, to bring charges.
Perhaps because of this, it has received somewhat less political and media attention in the months since the Mueller report came out - even if it was the central thrust of the investigation.
On Wednesday afternoon, however, the breadth of the Russian attacks on the US electoral process were front and centre. And in their questioning, Intelligence Committee Democrats bluntly set out the case that, while Mr Mueller may have concluded no crime was committed, some of the actions and statements by Mr Trump and his campaign team were troubling.
Mr Mueller agreed that Russia's primary goal was to help Mr Trump win the presidency and the Trump campaign "welcomed" the assistance; that several members of the Trump campaign, including the candidate himself, had business dealings or other contacts with Russians; that several individuals connected to the Trump campaign lied to investigators; and that the Trump campaign incorporated documents hacked and publicly released by Russian agents into their campaign strategy.
Contrary to the president's insistence, Mr Mueller said, the Russia investigation wasn't a "witch hunt" and Russian election-meddling was not a "hoax". Asked specifically about Mr Trump's praise of Wikileaks and its "treasure trove" of hacked documents, Mr Mueller said calling such remarks problematic "was an understatement".
Problematic statements aren't a criminal conspiracy, however, and it's clear at this point that the price Mr Trump will pay for them, if any, will be political, not legal.
The partisan muddle that lies ahead
Robert Mueller has been presented, at various times and by various parties, as a hero or villain - an avenging angel who would expose corruption or the part of a corrupt establishment himself.
After six hours of testimony, the former special counsel - for two years the silent sphinx of Washington - spoke extensively, but he revealed he had little of the superhuman powers that have been attributed to him.
In his sometimes stumbling testimony, he stuck by the text of his voluminous report, leaving the American political landscape much the way it sat before he entered the committee room on Wednesday morning.
Democrats hoping that Mr Mueller would offer the kind of sweeping testimony that fuels calls for presidential impeachment will surely be disappointed. Republicans, including the president himself, who were hoping for vindication at last - "No collusion! No obstruction!" - did not receive it.
Instead, the partisan muddle remains. Investigations in Congress will continue to plod along. Those on the left will continue to decry what they see as the president's obvious crimes and ethical shortcomings. Republicans will continue to insist the president is being smeared by false accusations.
In the end, like all political disputes, the American public will be the final arbiter.
In this case, that judgement will be passed at the ballot box, 15 months from now.
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The sale and promotion of tobacco products are to be more heavily-regulated. It is just the latest in a long line of laws to reduce smoking rates. But will it work and why are law-makers so keen on targeting smokers? | By Nick TriggleHealth reporter, BBC News
Bans have been imposed on tobacco advertising and smoking in public places in recent years. The age at which people can buy cigarettes has been increased from 16 to 18.
Later this year, tobacco products will be taken out of vending machines - and now ministers are seeking to ban displays in shops and, perhaps, force manufacturers to use plain packaging.
Smoking, it is fair to say, is probably the most regulated mass habit around.
But a quick look at smoking rates explains why the government is taking an increasingly tough stance.
In the 1950s, when the link between smoking and lung cancer was established beyond doubt, eight in 10 men smoked.
By 1974, 45% of adults were smokers and this continued to fall until it dipped under a quarter in 2001.
But since then the numbers have started levelling off. Some 21% of adults still smoke, with manual groups twice as likely to do so as professional groups.
Children
What is more, the number of child smokers remains worryingly high. One in seven 15-year-olds say they are regular smokers.
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley wants this to change - and believes the steps set out in his tobacco control strategy will help.
He has set "national ambitions" to reduce smoking in adults from 21.2% to 18.5% by 2015. There are specific goals for teenagers and pregnant women too.
It promises to be a challenging target. Many experts have argued that there is now a hardcore group of smokers that will continue regardless of the health warnings and government action.
But Professor Anne McNeill, an expert in health policy and promotion at Nottingham University, disagrees.
She cites the experience of California in the US which has got smoking rates under the magical 20% figure. She said the targeting of health messages at certain groups as well as steps, such as the display ban, to denormalise the habit were key.
But only time will tell whether banning shop displays and - if it happens - enforcing plain packaging will actually work in England.
In terms of the display ban, there is evidence already out there about the effect it could have. A host of countries, including Canada, Ireland, Finland, and Iceland, have already forced shops to keep tobacco products under-the-counter.
And where this has happened, there are signs smoking rates have fallen. In Saskatchewan, the first Canadian province to remove displays, youth smoking fell by a quarter in five years. Iceland also saw a fall of over 10% after its ban came into place in 2001. Other countries have reported similar patterns.
A study of 25,000 young people in New Zealand found 15-year-olds exposed to shop displays were three times more likely to try smoking. In fact, researchers found shop displays were an even greater risk factor than parental smoking.
But introducing legislation does cost industry. A review of the Irish ban by the UK Association of Convenience Stores found the average cost of compliance was £300 per store. In Canada, it was even more. Although manufacturers helped many stores pay for the changes.
Industry has also been adamant that banning displays and plain packaging will boost the black market in illicit cigarettes. The evidence on this is inconclusive, although there are suggestions that a display ban makes it harder for enforcement agencies to identify counterfeit products.
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As the crisis over the Trump administration's alleged links with Russia deepens, US media are talking about what they see as a moment of reckoning for the Republican Party, for President Donald Trump and indeed for the former FBI chief James Comey. | Many outlets are trying to gauge the mood of Republicans in Congress amid reports that President Trump asked Mr Comey to drop an inquiry into links between his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Russia.
In a sarcastic opinion piece, the New York Times, which first reported on Mr Comey's memo, says the memo's existence is "very bad news for an administration already suffocating itself in scandal". It expresses frustration with Republican lawmakers.
"Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the burden was on The Times to produce the memo," it says. "Perhaps he forgot his own committee's authority to subpoena Mr Comey's memo, and his testimony."
"When will Republicans in Congress decide that enough is enough? Do they need Mr Trump's approval ratings to dip below 30%? Do they need first to ram through their deeply unpopular agenda? Or it is possible they might at last consult their consciences, and recall that they took an oath to uphold the constitution?"
Dan Balz in the Washington Post describes the latest events as a "moment of reckoning" for the party.
"As President Trump has lurched from one crisis to another, Republicans have chosen a strategy of compartmentalisation over confrontation, preferring to look away in hopes that the storm would pass," he says. "Now, after a pair of stunning revelations about the president, that approach may have run aground.
"Calls for a special prosecutor or an independent investigation will intensify, though many Republicans will continue to resist, at least until their own political standing is in real danger.
"But the double revelations of the past two days show that events are forcing a change in everyone's calculations."
Politico says Republicans are in a bind because the crisis could threaten their entire legislative programme: "Health care, tax reform, building up the Pentagon — all of it is potentially threatened by the latest furore.
"And if Republicans are paralysed and can't pass anything despite control of the White House and Congress, how can they justify their majorities when they go before voters next year?"
'Possible smoking gun'
CNN's Stephen Collinson says reputations are at stake because of the latest scandal.
"It promises to have grave implications for the longevity of an administration that appears to slip deeper into utter disarray by the hour," he says.
"There doesn't seem to be a way that both men [Mr Trump and Mr Comey] could survive the contest with their reputations intact."
Collinson adds that testimony by Mr Comey would be "one of the most significant congressional appearances of modern times".
"The practiced, analytical note-taking of a former FBI director who knows how to leave a paper trail would amount to a compelling piece of evidence in the court of public opinion and pit Comey's word against Trump's.
"After all, a Comey memo could approach 'smoking gun' significance if it appears to prove that the president could conceivably be accused of obstructing justice - potentially grounds for impeachment."
'Dull blade'
Unsurprisingly, right-wing media have been dismissive of Mr Comey's apparent revelations, but there were differing opinions about who was to blame.
Tucker Carlson on Fox News urged viewers not to take everything they read at face value. He said "an awful lot of people in Washington" wanted to remove the president.
"What are their motives? In a lot of cases those are completely unknown. A lot of what you hear and accept uncritically you ought to question." he said.
Joel Pollak, writing in the pro-Trump news site Breitbart, however, points the finger at Mr Comey himself, who - it says - is clearly trying to cause maximum political damage to the president.
"But this dagger is a rather dull blade," Pollak says. "It lacks any apparent 'quid pro quo' - a sense that Trump was offering something to Comey in exchange for dropping the investigation.
"Democrats, predictably, are pouncing on the story," he adds. "But so far, is just the latest hysterical episode in their effort to deny the legitimacy of the November election.
"If this is the best that Comey's 'paper trail' can produce, his 'revenge' may backfire, at least in political terms."
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A car got wedged between railings after it took a wrong turning and was driven over a pedestrian footbridge. | The Suzuki Alto negotiated a large bend on the bridge near to the A63 in Hessle, East Yorkshire, but its off-road escapades came to a halt by a concrete bollard blocking its exit.
Police were called to help the stuck motorist at about 15:00 GMT on Monday.
Humberside Police declined to give any details about the driver, or how they managed to end up on the footbridge.
The force said the car was there for several hours before it was removed.
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Heroic tales of holidaymakers protecting loved ones and attempts to save lives have emerged from the inquest into the deaths of 30 British people killed in the Tunisia beach attack.
| Gunman Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire indiscriminately at tourists on sunloungers on the beach at the five-star Hotel Rui Imperial Marhaba in Sousse on 26 June 2015.
These are their stories.
Charles Patrick Evans, Adrian Evans and Joel Richards
Teenager Owen Richards tried to shield his grandfather during the Tunisia terror attack in which his brother and uncle were also killed.
Mr Richards, who was 16 at the time, was helping Charles Patrick Evans, 78, try to escape as gunman Seifeddine Rezgui hunted for victims at the beach hotel.
Mr Evans, his son Adrian Evans, 49, and Owen's brother Joel Richards, 19, were all shot dead at the Sousse beach resort.
The West Midlands family were enjoying the first day of their "jolly boys' outing", inspired by their favourite TV programme "Only Fools and Horses", when they heard gunshots from the direction of the beach.
They fled into the indoor pool area and as Rezgui approached, Mr Evans - known to his family as Pat - fell to the floor.
"I was hugging granddad on the floor and then I could see out of my right-hand corner my brother and seeing him dive to the floor," Mr Richards said.
"He lifted the gun up and I closed my eyes, then I heard a bunch of shots."
The four relatives had booked the holiday to celebrate Owen finishing his GCSE exams, his mother Suzanne Richards said.
Adrian Evans worked for Sandwell Council in Oldbury as a manager in the gas services department and Joel was a student at the University of Worcester and a keen football referee.
Mrs Richards said: "We take comfort that they stayed together in their last moments - protecting each other."
Carly Lovett
Liam Moore battled to save the life of his fiancee Carly Lovett during the attack, the inquest heard.
The couple ran from the beach into the hotel after hearing gunshots, and were hiding in a staff area. Mr Moore said: "We were standing close to each other, just hugging each other and holding each other's hands.
"Carly was saying that she was scared and I said I was too, but that we would get out of there."
The 24-year-old beauty blogger was then injured in an explosion.
"She said that shecouldn't move her legs and that shewas blacking out and she told me that she loved me and I told her that I loved her too," Mr Moore said.
He began CPR on her when she stopped responding.
Ms Lovett, from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, had recently got engaged to Mr Moore, her childhood sweetheart of 10 years. This was the first couple's holiday together.
Her family described her as "a kind,caring, intelligent,beautifulwoman with a wicked sense of humour".
Stephen Mellor
Cheryl Mellor said her "hero" husband Stephen, 59, sacrificed his life to protect her during the attack.
She told the inquest that her husband of 10 years climbed on top of her as they lay on the beach in between their sun beds when the gunman shot at them.
In her statement, read out at London's Royal Courts of Justice, Mrs Mellor said: "I am only here today due to the bravery of my husband, Steve.
"We were being shot and he protected me. Steve stayed and saved me. He sacrificed himself. Steve is a hero to me."
Yorkshire-born Mr Mellor, a father of three from Bodmin, Cornwall, died after being shot in the chest and abdomen.
Mrs Mellor, who was shot in the leg and wrist, suffered life-changing injuries.
Mr Mellor did not live to see the birth of his third grandchild, a boy called Thomas Stephen, who was named after him.
Sports fan Mr Mellor had a "huge interest" in golf and was "so well‐liked and respected" in the golfing community that a trophy has been presented in his name: "The Stephen Mellor Trophy".
Stuart Cullen
Christine Cullen tried to save the life of her husband, Stuart, after they were injured in an explosion.
A bomb had been thrown towards them by the gunman.
"I told him I could not stop the surge of blood. I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me. I knew he was dying," said Mrs Cullen, who was also on the floor with pain in her leg.
The inquest was told that the gunman then walked towards the couple, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, and despite Mrs Cullen's cries of "no, no", shot Mr Cullen.
Chelsea fan Mr Cullen worked for the prison service until a recurring knee problem prevented him from going back to work.
He medically retired from his job when his daughter, Emma-Jayne, was four years old.
Mrs Cullen said: "He made a full-time career of looking after the house and taking care of Emma, which enabled me to go out to full-time work.
"It was the mid-90s and for this to happen toa man was very hard and alonely job. However, he took this responsibility with pride, grace and great courage...
"Stuart loved life, his family and friends."
John Stollery
John and Cheryl Stollery passed a gunman dressed in black as they ran from the beach to the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel, having heard gunshots, the inquest was told.
Mrs Stollery, from Walesby, Nottinghamshire, described how the gunman went past her before she turned around to see her husband on the floor.
"I screamed 'no' very loudly and 'John, John'. I went back up to him, stood over him and I could see from that moment he had already died," she said.
Mrs Stollery went on to hide in a phone booth for about seven minutes, before she was hidden in a laundry room by a man she recognised as the site gardener.
Social worker and "devoted husband and dad" Mr Stollery, 58, had worked at Nottinghamshire County Council for 33 years and spent the last 16 years working with children in care.
The couple were on a family holiday with their son, Matthew.
Chris Dyer
Gina Van Dort came face-to-face with the gunman as she and her husband Chris Dyer crouched behind a car in the hotel grounds, trying to hide.
But the gunman spotted the couple and shot them.
Mrs Van Dort, who was shot twice, said she pretended to be dead.
"He just walked towards us, shot us, walked over us, he didn't stop and pause, just shot and went," she said.
"I realised I was still alive.
"I closed my eyes, I stopped breathing - I was pretending to be dead. I remember counting three breaths, and it was over.
"When I couldn't hold my breath any longer, I opened my eyes."
Her husband, Chris, from Watford, Hertfordshire, died.
The 32-year-old electrical engineer consultant was a Watford Football club fan and a keen motorbike enthusiast. He was a member of the Watford Gracie Jiu-Jitsu club and had earned his blue belt.
Claire Windass
Jim Windass dragged his wife Claire off a sunbed and tried to protect her when the shooting began, the inquest heard.
He got on his hands and knees over Mrs Windass as the gunman continued past them into the Imperial Marhaba hotel.
"And that was basically it," he said. "I mean, there was no pulse. I closed her eyes."
Mr Windass said he then dived into the sea to hide behind a buoy for "two to three minutes" before he was picked up by "some guy in a speedboat" and taken to safety.
"[Claire's] caring nature would be prevalent throughout her whole life," a statement from her family said.
"Her career included over years of service to her local authority, North Lincolnshire Council.
"She was passionate about the work she did and extremely compassionate to those she cared for.
"It was as if she was made for this career as these attributes came naturally to her."
Mrs Windass, 54, who had two children and two step-children, lived in Scunthorpe for 35 years before moving to Hull in 2012 when she married Mr Windass.
James and Ann McQuire
James McQuire was injured in the terror attack but died on his way to hospital after a 20-minute wait in an ambulance, the inquest heard.
The 66-year-old and his wife Ann, 63, were shot near a hotel swimming pool. Mrs McQuire died at the scene.
The couple, who had been married for 43 years and were from Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, were on their first holiday after retiring when they were shot at the beach resort.
The couple's son, Stuart McQuire, said they had been robbed of a happy retirement after decades of hard work.
Both Glasgow-born, Mr McQuire had been a shipyard engineer, and his wife a medical receptionist.
A statement from the couple's son said: "They shared a love of music, my dad played the guitar andso did my mum, however my dad's singing voice wasn't up to much while my mum was excellent.
"They played in a band called Tartan Spirits and would spend many nights rehearsing with their friends or playing for community groups."
A granddaughter born since their deaths was named Lily Ann in memory of Mrs McQuire, but her son said it was "heartbreaking" his parents would miss out on watching her grow up.
Lisa Burbidge
Grandmother Lisa Burbidge died in the terror attack on the 10th anniversary of her husband's death.
The 66-year-old, from Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, was on holiday with three friends at the time of the attack.
She was on the beach with her friend Jennifer McDine when they heard gunshots.
Ms McDine hid behind her sunbed and glanced up to see a figure in black with a gun "just like the ones you see on the TV".
She then ran up the beach, thinking Mrs Burbidge was ahead of her, and hid inside a toilet cubicle in the hotel until the attack was over.
Mrs Burbidge's friends identified her body at the hospital mortuary by her toenail polish, the inquest was told, and a post-mortem examination found the grandmother died from a gunshot wound to the head.
A family statement said Mrs Burbidge had never got over the death of her husband, Bill, who died in 2005 after being diagnosed with cancer.
It said: "She was a beautiful person, a loving grandmother, mother, sister, daughter and best friend."
Philip Heathcote
Philip and Allison Heathcote dived on to the sand by their sunbeds when they first heard the sound of gunshots on the beach, the inquest heard.
"I decided my best chance of survival was to act dead," said a statement from Mrs Heathcote, from Felixstowe, Suffolk, who survived five gunshot wounds.
"At the first opportunity I was asking Phil if he was all right. There was no response from Phil and I realised he had not made it."
Manchester United fan Philip, 53, died in the attack and Allison, 50, was in an induced coma for a month after the incident.
The Suffolk couple, who have one son, now 27, were in Tunisia to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary on 29 June.
"Phil was a very straightforward and honest man, called a spade a spade and said things as he saw them," Mrs Heathcote told the inquest.
"We both also loved to watch our son play sport as he grew up, Phil hardly ever missed a football match he played in."
Mr Heathcote was a traffic operator with Goldstar Transport.
"Phil was loved dearly by both his family in Manchester and my family," Mrs Heathcote said.
David Thompson
David Thompson, who was 80 and the oldest victim of the attack, had been on holiday with his long-term partner, Anne Kear.
They were sitting by the hotel pool when Ms Kear heard a "horrific sound like a bomb", she said in a statement.
She started making her way to the hotel, along with a group of other holidaymakers, but realised Mr Thompson, a retired Atomic Weapons Establishment scientist, was not with her.
She said she was later taken to the hospital mortuary in Tunis to identify his body.
A post-mortem examination found Mr Thompson, from Tadley in Hampshire, died from gunshot wounds to the chest.
Bruce Wilkinson
Rita Wilkinson was separated from her husband of 51 years, Bruce, during the attack and she hid inside a luggage room in the hotel reception.
The next time Mrs Wilkinson saw her 72-year-old husband, who had been sunbathing with her in the hotel grounds, he was lying dead on the ground.
He had been killed by a gunshot wound to his neck.
It was the second year in a row that the couple, from Goole in East Yorkshire, had stayed at the hotel.
Mr Wilkinson worked at Drax power station for 23 years and for the last 10 years of his life he drove patient transport ambulances for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust.
Mrs Wilkinson said: "Bruce was a very caring man and often on the many fantastic holidays we enjoyed together, if anybody was taken ill he would always try to help make them better.
"So afterall theseyears I feel as though I have lost my best friend and my right arm."
The couple have two daughters.
Trudy Jones
Mum-of-four Trudy Jones, 51, was on holiday with friend Carol Anne Powell when the gunman struck.
Ms Powell, who survived the attack, said she "heard the most terrible explosion" behind her and then saw crowds of people running.
She said Ms Jones, from Blackwood in south Wales, had gone to the beach.
"I wanted to run towards the beach to check on Trudy, but people were running towards me shouting 'go, go'," Ms Powell said.
"I started to run towards the hotel with the crowds of people."
Ms Powell eventually decided to play dead in a hotel car park, where she was picked up by a man and carried to safety at a neighbouring hotel.
The family of Ms Jones said in a statement: "Trudy Jones was a loving mother of four children, nanny to eight grandchildren who all adored her, sister to two brothers and two sisters and daughter to her mother who she cared for in between work...
"She was a beautiful person inside and out, she would put everyone else's happiness before her own."
John and Janet Stocker
Grandparents John and Janet Stocker of Morden, south London, were frequent flyers who enjoyed travelling to new places, their family told the inquest.
In Tunisia, the couple met Anthony Miller who was on holiday with his wife Julie.
Mr Miller told the inquest that they were sunbathing on the beach when Mr and Mrs Stocker were shot dead. Mr and Mrs Miller survived after playing dead by lying on the sand.
Retired printer Mr Stocker, 74, was born in Peckham, south-east London, and was a "proud father of us five children and 10 grandchildren".
Mrs Stocker, 63, was born in Fulham, west London, and was described as a "fun-loving and devoted mother" who "loved nothing more than being around all of the grandchildren".
Mr Stocker went on to work for Sainsbury's until 2006, while Mrs Stocker also worked in Sainsbury's and in the local bingo hall.
"John and Janet Stocker died together doingwhat they enjoyed most; being sideby side," a statement from their family said.
Raymond and Angela Fisher
Raymond and Angela Fisher were months away from their 50th golden wedding anniversary were they were shot dead in the attack.
The Leicester couple, who had been together since they were about 15, were on their third trip to Tunisia. They had two children, Donna and Adam.
Their daughter, Donna Bradley, was the first relative to speak to the inquest in person.
She said: "Ray and Angie were total opposites.
"Ray was tall, skinny, handsome, loud, confident and easy going. Angie was petite, angelic, quiet, studious, serious and determined.
"In reality they were not suited on paper but the phrase opposites attract was certainly an apt description."
Ray retired at age 62, from his role as a caretaker and Angie retired at age 59, from a management role at a bank, before she returned part-time to hairdressing.
"Ray and Angie had always hoped for grandchildren. Up to their death this did not happen," Ms Bradley said.
"Nine months after Ray and Angie's death, Adam and Kate discovered that they were expecting.
"Little Fish, as the baby fondly became known, arrived two days before the Tunisian inquests began, on 14 January 2017."
Denis and Elaine Thwaites
Denis and Elaine Thwaites, from Blackpool, Lancashire, were shot when gunman Seifeddine Rezgui opened fire at the five-star Rui Imperial Marhaba Hotel.
The couple's son-in-law Daniel Clifford read a statement on behalf of their daughter Lindsey at the inquest, which said: "I idolised my dad, looked up to him and loved him unconditionally. He was my shining light, my star.
"I will never get over this horrendous tragedy of losing both parents in this vicious and callous attack."
Former footballer Mr Thwaites, 70, broke into the Birmingham City first team at the age of 16 in 1961, and turned professional the following year.
The winger played several games in the First Division at the start of the 1962-63 season and remained at the club for more than 10 years.
Mr Clifford said his mother-in-law Elaine, 69, was like a "second mum and a great friend" to him.
He added: "She was beautiful inside and out, elegant and looked her best without even trying."
William and Lisa Graham
Lisa and Billy Graham were in Tunisia to celebrate their 31st wedding anniversary when Seifeddine Rezgui struck.
The couple, from Bankfoot, Perth and Kinross, rushed into the hotel after hearing gunfire from the beach, the inquest heard, but they died from bullet wounds to the chest.
They were killed in the first floor administration area, police told the inquest.
The hearing heard that Mrs Graham, 50 - nicknamed "sun goddess" - was a very caring and thoughtful woman who loved to laugh.
Mr Graham, 51, worked as a turnstile operator on match days at St Johnstone FC's McDiarmid Park in Perth, having previously served for 22 years in the British army's 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards.
He was described as happy-go-lucky and a big joker who loved to make people laugh.
The couple had one child, Holly.
Sue Davey and Scott Chalkley
Couple Scott Chalkley and Sue Davey had just bought a house together and were in Tunisia to celebrate that milestone in their relationship.
They were both shot by the gunman during the attack.
Mum-of-three Ms Davey, grew up in Stonydelph, Tamworth, Staffs, and was described at the inquest as "a doting nanny to her two granddaughters Matilda and Dollie".
The 43-year-old had met her partner Mr Chalkley, 42, at their workplace, Severn Trent Water.
"Despite being the eternal bachelor, Scott was smittenwith Sueand theyhad just made the step of buying a house together," a family statement said.
Lifelong Arsenal fan and dad-of-two Mr Chalkley, from Chaddesden, Derby, was described at the inquest as "well-known for his cockney pride, cheeky grin and infectious laugh".
Christopher and Sharon Bell
Grandparents Christopher and Sharon Bell, 54, were shot dead close to the hotel swimming pool, the inquest heard.
The couple, from Leeds, had been married for 35 years and had three children and two grandchildren.
Mr Bell, 59, worked for Northern Rail in the ticket office at Leeds City Station for eight years, having previously been a taxi driver and a bus driver.
"Their family was everything to them, and both of them were never happier than when they were surrounded by their family," a family statement said.
John Welch and Eileen Swannack
John Welch, 74, and his partner of eight years Eileen Swannack, 73, loved Tunisia and had stayed at the Hotel Riu Imperial Marhaba twice a year for the past four years.
Mr Welch was one of three siblings, and had three children, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
The retired plumber was born in Abertillery, south Wales, but moved to Corsham, Wiltshire, at an early age and lived the rest of his life in the town.
He met Mrs Swannack, a widow, following the death of his partner Nanette in 2005.
Mrs Swannack, who was originally from Bristol, had two sons with her husband, Eddie, who died in 2005. She had two grandchildren and two step-grandchildren.
A family statement read to the inquest said: "Meeting her partner John in 2007 gave them both a new lease of life, they regularly holidayed abroad together, Tunisia in particular."
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A call seeking potential sites for development in a part of the Highlands has sparked 450 suggestions.
| Highland Council asked for possible locations to help it produce the Inner Moray Firth Local Development Plan.
The finished document will guide building projects in the area, which includes Inverness, Tain, Muir of Ord, Nairn, Cannich and Fort Augustus.
The next stage in developing the plan will be to come up with site options in large towns and villages.
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Boris Johnson insists on them, Graham Brady is pushing hard for them, Prime Minister Theresa May seems to be praying for them and Dublin is deeply worried at the thought of them but will the EU ever actually "give in" and make changes to the backstop - that guarantee post-Brexit to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland? | Katya AdlerEurope editor@BBCkatyaadleron Twitter
It's a tough one.
The EU certainly never intended to budge on the backstop - painfully negotiated with the UK over 18 months and signed off last November by Mrs May and her cabinet.
But Europe's leaders didn't imagine the UK would still be in such flux over Brexit so very close to B-day on 29 March.
Conversations I had with EU figures before Christmas saw my contacts confidently predicting that 2019 would see a no-deal Brexit (which they didn't believe UK MPs would allow to happen), Theresa May's Brexit deal being passed by parliament with cross-party support when MPs realised the looming risk of no deal (they thought this outcome the most likely), or no Brexit at all.
Read more:
But now there is spreading concern, as the EU's deputy chief Brexit negotiator, Sabine Weyand, pointed out on Monday, that the UK could end up "crashing out" of the EU - not intentionally but simply because time allotted by law for exit negotiations could run out before any agreement is reached.
"The only reason there's still relative calm in EU circles about a no-deal Brexit is because we still have the popcorn out," one EU diplomat told me.
"We're mesmerised by the goings on in the House of Commons. But give it a few weeks: if nothing has changed, you'll soon see signs of panic in the (European) capitals."
Of course the EU wants to concentrate minds - for negotiating purposes - on the pain a no-deal Brexit will cause the UK but it will inevitably be costly and difficult for European citizens and businesses too.
Game planning
EU leaders won't want to be punished at the ballot box back home for not having done their best in the view of their voters to avoid all that, but you would be mistaken to then conclude Brussels will - when push comes to shove - pay any price to head off a no-deal Brexit.
Behind closed doors, of course, there is a certain amount of game planning going on but the EU is currently in watch and wait mode.
EU leaders believe the Brexit debate still has a way to run in parliament and they want to see which way the wind is blowing.
They hope if they stand firm and refuse to reopen the Brexit withdrawal agreement, then MPs could be tempted to unite around a softer Brexit than the one advocated by Theresa May - in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit.
Some EU leaders dream of a second referendum, resulting - perhaps - in a Brexit reversal.
So put yourself in the EU's shoes for a moment: why make a move now as long as the above options appear (to varying degrees) to still be possibilities in the UK?
This is why we've recently heard the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, insisting that there is flexibility in the Brexit text on EU-UK future relations, whereas the backstop text is unchangeable.
The EU, as I mentioned earlier, wants very, very, very much to avoid making changes to the backstop.
A reminder again as to why:
And the EU is thinking bigger picture too. If Brussels "caves in" to the UK over the backstop, there's a fear that could encourage Brussels-sceptic governments in member states Hungary, Italy and Poland, for example, to flout club rules. It could also send a message of weakness to international trade partners.
Ticking clock
Yet despite all that, if EU leaders were staring into the no-deal Brexit abyss come 1 March, then blink they might over the backstop. And there are the beginnings of whispers to that effect in some EU corridors.
Who knows now what changes the EU might eventually accept and it's very hard indeed to imagine them doing it without the OK from Dublin.
But mindful of the ticking clock, the European Commission appears to be trying to focus minds in the Irish government and beyond (remember Theresa May's repeated pledge to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland?) on harsh realities.
Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas - a man known to be extremely careful about what he does or doesn't say - last week pointedly announced that a no-deal Brexit would inevitably lead to some kind of hard border/ie physical checks.
But anyone in Westminster who thinks the backstop issue could magically disappear should definitely think again.
Not just in the context of the Brexit agreement but what comes after.
Ireland - as every other EU member - has a veto over any future EU-UK trade deal and could use it if Dublin felt the border wasn't adequately protected.
In conclusion, the EU will wait until the last minute to make concessions over the Brexit deal on the table.
It's not in the market to make changes here and there only for Theresa May to come back again and demand more.
That's why the message from EU leaders to the prime minister has been loud and clear. They have told her: "Don't bother coming back to us in Brussels until you can convincingly (i.e. not just by a couple of votes) show us once and for all that the majority of parliament is behind you."
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Hazing rituals have long been a brutal secret among high school and college sport teams. But in the #MeToo era, can teenage victims shatter the code of silence?
*This story includes some graphic descriptions of sexual assault* | By Robin Levinson-KingBBC News, Toronto
When Allison Brookman arrived at Reed Custer High School to pick up her 14-year-old son Anthony from American football camp, she knew something was wrong.
"You can kind of tell when your kid is hurt or sad," she told the BBC.
"When I pulled up, I saw that same look in his face, that he was hurt."
After some needling from his mother, he admitted he had just been "jumped" by four senior football players.
But it wasn't until she took him to hospital to have his injuries examined that she heard what had really happened - that Anthony had been beaten up and sexually assaulted by members of the team as part of a violent hazing ritual.
"The first guy who slapped me twice and knocked me down, he kicked me in my right side on my ribs," Anthony told CBS in an interview.
"While the fourth one took my shorts off and they pulled my legs up so that he could get his finger to my, you know, body part."
Allison says when they heard this in the hospital examining room, she and her husband were stricken with horror.
"They didn't just beat you up, they tried fondling you?" she recalls asking.
"At that point my son looked at us and said 'don't worry mom, don't worry dad, they didn't get in me.'"
"That was probably the breaking point for both of us."
Now the family is suing the Reed-Custer Community Unit School District 255 in Braidwood, Illinois, claiming it failed to prevent the sexual assault and for allegedly not properly responding to the incident once they became aware.
Superintendent Mark Mitchell defends the schools actions and says the players were punished "according to the terms of the School District's Athletic Code of Conduct." The school is defending the legal action.
Three of the alleged attackers have also been charged as juveniles with aggravated battery. They are not named as they were minors at the time of the incident.
As their case winds through the courts, other eerily-similar incidents have also come to light. In Maryland, four 15-year-old members of the Damascus High School junior varsity football team are accused of raping a younger teammate with a broomstick as part of a hazing ritual, and trying to rape others.
Prosecutors have told in chilling detail how the alleged attackers cornered four freshmen teammates in the locker room.
"It's time," one of them said before they ganged up on the first victim, holding him down and sodomising him with the broom handle.
They are being tried as adults. A fifth suspect is being charged as a juvenile.
And in the Canadian city of Toronto, seven 14- and 15-year-old football players from St Michael's College School are facing charges of gang sex assault related to three separate hazing incidents.
In one incident, a video allegedly showing a teammate being penetrated by a broom was shared online.
These high-profile cases of sexual assault have reignited the call to end hazing in sports. And in the #MeToo era, many former victims are coming out to share their story.
What is hazing?
Hazing is when members of a group deliberately embarrass or harm new or prospective members as part of a rite of passage, or initiation into the group.
"These are powerful forces that we're talking about, wanting to belong and wanting to be a part of a community," says Jay Johnson, an expert on hazing on sports teams who teaches at the University of Manitoba.
Hazing rituals can run the gamut from relatively benign - forcing team members to carry the gear to matches, or chant silly songs on campus - to extreme forms of bullying, including physical and sexual abuse.
It has been most commonly associated with university fraternities and sororities and athletic clubs, but high school groups are not immune. A 2000 survey by Alfred University found that about half of high school students reported participating in activities that qualified as hazing - while only 14% identified as being hazed.
In the US, 44 states have banned hazing.
In Canada, many universities and sport organisations have anti-hazing policies, though no federal law specifically targets the practice. Like in the St Michael's incident, police have often relied on assault laws when laying charges in hazing cases.
In the UK, the Rugby Football Union, the sport's governing body, has said initiations at university clubs are putting people off wanting to continue playing.
It claimed the traditions are partly to blame for an estimated 10,000 school leavers who recently stopped playing.
When hazing turns criminal
Most students who have been hazed have trouble realising they were, says Johnson, in part because a lot of the activities may seem harmless and like they were "just being a part of a team".
But hazing can turn sinister, and the practice leads to several deaths a year, often from alcohol intoxication.
Sexualised hazing is also fairly common, says Johnson.
From Texas to Australia, there have been reports of ritual sex assault on school sports teams for years.
A 2017 investigation by the Associated Press found 70 cases of teammate-on-teammate sexual assaults in US public schools between 2012-2017, which it called "the tip of the iceberg".
The cases are shocking both in their violence and their similarity, often featuring some variation of older teammates sodomising victims with anything from a fist, to a Gatorade bottle to the nozzle of a carbon-dioxide tank.
Earlier this year, an organisation called End Rape on Campus released a report saying that orientation week at Australian Universities is called "The Red Zone" by sexual assault support workers due to the combination of assaults, hazing rituals, and excessive alcohol consumption.
Code of silence
Sometimes all it takes is one bad apple to push a team to commit sexual assault, Johnson says.
"All it takes is that one person in power, or at the top of the hierarchy... a veteran player who came in who was a bit on the sadistic side, who pushes that boundary of what it can become," he says.
But hazing rituals usually stem from a toxic team culture, he says.
Traditions are passed down from year-to-year, and today's aggressors were often last year's victims. Often, coaches and other authorities turn a blind eye, Johnson says.
In their lawsuit, the Brookmans blame the school for allowing the hazing to fester on the team until it escalated to their son's assault. They also blame the school for allegedly not protecting their son from bullying after the incident.
Allison says Anthony was harassed every day by fellow students who called him a "rat". Meanwhile, she says, the alleged attackers only received a three-day game suspension.
It was the lack of action, she says, that led the family to sue.
"We just wanted to do our best to let our son see that he was somebody who was worth fighting for," she says.
Anthony now goes to a different school, and is seeing a therapist. The head coach resigned from the team, although he is still a teacher at the school.
Superintendant Mitchell says the student-athletes were disciplined according to school guidelines. He says he is not legally allowed to comment on individual disciplinary cases.
"We intend to vigorously defend these baseless allegations and protect the reputation of our fine School District and its staff," he said in a written statement.
In Toronto, the hazing allegations led to the resignation of school principal Greg Reeves and school president Father Jefferson Thompson.
Several alumni critiqued what they claim was the elite school's culture of "toxic masculinity" and claimed it had a "code of silence", especially once it was revealed that Principal Reeves did not immediately report the video of the alleged sexual assault.
He said that he did so the next day, after first helping the victim to tell his parents, because caring for the victim had been his first priority.
"This is a great school, and the majority of the teachers are great people. Where was the oversight? Like, what's going on with your teams? What is the mentality here? … There's a code of silence at the school," a parent told Postmedia news outlet.
#MeToo in the locker room
The Brookman's story, and the sexual assault cases in Maryland and Toronto, have come to light during an era of public reckoning about sexual violence.
From Hollywood to the Supreme Court, victims have come forward to describe how powerful institutions silenced them to protect their attackers.
Are youth sports next?
Johnson says he believes the attention that is being paid to Anthony's case, and the sexual assault charges laid in Maryland and in Toronto, show that people are beginning to think differently about hazing.
"I actually have hope that this might sort of be the flashpoint, for opening up the floodgates, similar to what happened to the #MeToo movement," Johnson says.
"That more people might start to come forward and feel empowered to share their stories."
There are signs that is starting to happen. In Toronto, prominent NHL players have revealed they were victims of sexual hazing while playing in junior ice hockey leagues, as have some alumni of St Michael's.
Ultimately, that is why Anthony agreed to tell his story on the nightly news.
"You see a lot of hazing on TV, but that's all it is, it's the news reporter maybe talking with the other news reporter and a picture of the school," Allison recalls her son telling her.
"Nobody ever steps forward, I want people to actually see my face and see what people did to me."
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Do you think you know the most efficient ways to heat and insulate your home? Find out how well-informed you really are about saving energy with this quiz.
| The advice in this quiz was developed with the help of the Energy Saving Trust, which offers detailed information on how to make your home more energy-efficient.
The quiz was produced as part of a collection of special reports, features and analysis from across BBC News, marking the launch of the BBC Briefing.
BBC Briefing is a mini-series of downloadable guides to the big issues in the news, with input from academics, researchers and journalists. It is the BBC's response to audiences demanding better explanation of the facts behind the headlines.
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Later this week, thousands will head to Manhattan's historic Chinatown to celebrate Lunar New Year. But amidst all the pomp and the parades, revellers might also find themselves caught up in a healthy dose of politics, writes Zhaoyin Feng of the BBC's Chinese Service. | Almost every day, 76-year-old Fang Yanhua, the president of the Chinese-American group Suyuan Association, follows the same routine, which includes playing mah-jong for hours at the association's office at New York City's Chinatown in Lower Manhattan.
Drastic change is unusual in the historic district. But a seemingly small change, made by Suyuan Association, has sparked a heated and profound debate within the community.
In August 2018, for the first time in nearly a century, the association raised the People's Republic of China's five-starred red flag.
It replaces another Chinese flag commonly known as the Blue Sky, White Sun and a Wholly Red Earth, the national flag of the Republic of China (ROC) , which ceased to be used, except in Taiwan, when the PRC was founded in 1949.
"I am Chinese, so I support China," Mr Fang told the BBC. When he was born in southern China in 1943, the country still flew the ROC flag, which is now history in Fang's view.
"The historical current has changed direction."
Why are there two flags?
The ROC was founded in 1912 and ruled by the Kuomintang party. In 1949, after the Chinese Communist Party defeated the Kuomintang in the civil war, the CCP founded the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing, and the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan, claiming Taipei as the temporary capital.
The five-starred red flag is PRC's national flag, while the ROC flag is now mainly displayed in Taiwan, which has been effectively independent but regarded by Beijing as a rebel region for more than 70 years.
In mainland China, the ROC flag is usually only seen in museums and history television series, or as a sign of nostalgia to the "old China". In Taiwan, the PRC flag is largely considered as an unwelcome symbol of Beijing's aggression.
In international events, Taiwan is banned from using the ROC's name, emblems and flags. In 2015, during a Washington DC event to commemorate the end of World War II in Asia, the Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai cancelled his attendance at the last minute, due to a wreath displaying the ROC's national emblem.
The two China flags are rarely displayed together, with overseas Chinatowns as one of the few exceptions.
Which flag to fly
Across a narrow alley from the Suyuan Association, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), the oldest and largest Chinese American association founded in 1883, flies its ROC flag proudly.
"I don't agree that changing to the PRC flag is the general trend. They (Suyuan Association) simply pursue a different political vision from ours," Eric Ng, President of CCBA, told the BBC.
The president of the CCBA used to be called "Chinatown Mayor", but Mr Ng may be losing his grip.
Most newly established Chinese-American groups fly the PRC flag, and across the country the PRC flag has become more and more ubiquitous in America's Chinatowns, as several older associations in New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco changed over.
Mr Ng attributed the phenomenon to a large influx of immigrants from mainland China in the recent years, who are politically pro-Beijing and now hold leadership positions in various immigrant associations.
The rise of China plays a role too.
"China is now stronger," Mr Fang says.
His association had considered switching flag years ago, inspired by China's soaring political and economic status in the world.
When the Suyuan Association adopted the new flag, anti-Beijing protestors gathered in the street outside.
Mr Fang, now a US citizen, says he respects the rights to protest and dissent in the US, and acknowledges it's not the case in China.
"In America, one can criticize President Donald Trump, but in China, one can't do the same to President Xi Jinping."
But the flag switch was not at all political, insists 72-year-old Kuang Junlin, co-president of Suyuan Association.
"We just wanted to express our love for the motherland," he told the BBC.
He says the PRC flag represents "mother", while the ROC flag is "grandmother."
Rising tension between Taipei and Beijing may be another contributing factor. Taiwan's Presidenjt Tsai Ing-wen has been vocal in her opposition to Beijing's attempts to exert authority over her country.
In an interview with the BBC, she said China needs to "face reality" and show the island "respect".
Beijing is unhappy with her stand, as are some Chinese-Americans.
"We support a unified China and would not accept Taiwan independence," says Junlin Kuang, a former chairman of Suyuan Association.
Meanwhile, Remus Li-Kuo Chen, a senior diplomat of Taipei, told media that the flag switch highlights mainland China's increased efforts of minimizing Taiwan's international space.
Agree to disagree
Almost all Chinese-American associations that switched flags made the decision by casting a direct vote among members.
"We follow the American rule, as we live in America now," Mr Fang says.
He prefers decision-making in the democratic way because "the association belongs to all of us". Only 100 out of the Suyuan Association's 700 members voted on the flag change, but among those who casted a vote, more than 95 percent supported the change.
"The two China flags are flying side by side, mirroring the freedom to identify in the US," Nancy Yao Maasbach, President of the Museum of Chinese in America, told the BBC.
The changing of flags is associated with a thoughtful, reflective and potentially painful conversation among Chinese immigrants about their mixed identity, she says.
Though discontent with Suyuan Association's decision, Mr Ng agreed to disagree.
Whenever Ng and Fang occasionally run into each other on the bustling streets in Chinatown, they will still nod at and greet each other in Taishanese, their shared mother tongue.
"I believe in free will," Mr Ng says.
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American photographer Ralph Gibson has been transforming the world into stark black and white since the swinging 60s. From the soft and sensual to still life, Gibson's camera has been guided by the decision he made aged only 17 when he knew he was going to become a photographer. | "I just knew my destiny," says Gibson. "It was like being born rich or smart, a huge gift to know what I wanted."
Gibson learned his trade in the US Navy before working as an assistant to photographic masters like Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank, both of whom helped shaped the way his photographic eye would develop.
A year into his time with Lange, she invited Gibson, then aged 21, to show her his pictures. As she looked at them she remarked that the problem was he had no point of departure.
Gibson agreed, but then asked: "What is a point of departure?"
Her reply ran counter to the idea of the heroic photographer wandering the streets in search of some kind of truth. Instead she said he had to have an objective and a destination, and then he might intersect with something worth photographing.
"Simply stated," says Gibson, "this has been the backbone of my career - if there was one quantum leap it was this."
Yet it was to be some years before he realised this when he published his first book, The Somnambulist.
In the intervening years, Gibson set out on a career as a photojournalist, eventually joining the prestigious Magnum Photo Agency, though his time there was short.
"I was pursuing the documentary aesthetic," says Gibson. "I had that look, that approach to the medium but I wasn't being satisfied.
"I wanted autonomy, all the credit, all the blame," says Gibson. He did not want to be at the mercy of the newspaper and magazine photo editors, who many photographers felt failed to show off their best frames.
By then he had been working as a photographer for 10 years having started in the navy, aged 17. He met Frank, whose work The Americans has come to be one of the all-time great works of photography. Frank stressed the importance of originality, re-enforcing what Lange had already told him.
Gibson was staying at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, soaking up the creative vibe, surrounded by artists from many genres, including the musician Leonard Cohen with whom he became friends. An accomplished guitarist, Gibson played guitar on Cohen's fourth album New Skin for the Old Ceremony.
Returning to room 923 from a trip to Mexico, he pinned the image above, and a few others, on the wall.
"I had an amazing epiphany," says Gibson. "I felt as though my camera had isolated a bandwidth which we will call a dream reality, it had plugged me into that.
"It was a bit presumptuous, but as my point of departure it was not a bad idea."
He knew then that this was to be his calling, he ceased all commercial work and set out to create what was to become his first book.
"I don't know how I survived," says Gibson. "But I was young and didn't need much."
During one weekend he created 36 pictures that formed the basis of The Somnambulist. It took three years to shoot the rest.
"In that one inspired weekend I was at the same place that the great artists like Picasso or DaVinci go to all day, every day," says Gibson. "I had accessed that source, a Shangri-La that every artist searches for."
The Somnambulist was published in 1970.
"When I made that book I had two of my three Leicas [cameras] at the pawn shop and owed nine months rent on my room at the Chelsea Hotel. But quite by surprise, the book was very well received and so three months later I was established worldwide."
He soon followed his first book with two more, Deja-Vu and Days at Sea, known as The Black Trilogy.
He had discovered what he calls his "visual signature".
Some of this he attributes to time spent on the set of Alfred Hitchcock films in Hollywood as a child, while his father worked as an assistant director. The close-ups and the intense light required by the orthochromatic film used at the time subconsciously embedding itself to re-emerge later.
He also attributes some of it to his camera. He sees his Leica as his "Stradivarius" and has no need to constantly upgrade or add new lenses. "This camera is capable of anything I am capable of asking it to do," says Gibson, spending time refining his mastery of it.
Now aged 80 he still feels he is only as good as his next picture and sees the visual literacy that has grown up in recent years around online photo forums as primarily a good thing, although he feels it can lead to work that is repetitive.
"You go on Instagram and you could be looking at a picture by a great photographer or the work of an eight-year-old kid," says Gibson.
"The software that makes everybody a photographer and gives everybody visual literacy also makes all their photos look the same.
"When taking a photograph with a phone you are letting it find the picture for you, but if you put a rangefinder camera to your eye you are seeing what is in the frame and what is not, you are selecting what to photograph, it is predicated on your vision.
"The upside is that if you look at serious practitioners today at art school, then young people are much more visually sophisticated than I was at the same point.
"I always says your next great masterpiece is only three or four steps away, the question is which direction to go?"
Ralph Gibson's work can be seen at Photo London until 19 May and at the London Leica Store until 23 June 2019.
All photographs copyright Ralph Gibson.
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